■IS 


if 


#1 


The  Mould  of  Doctrine 

A  Study  OF 


LSSE  B/niOMAS,]).D. 


Jf'o. 


J- 


^^'^^^^►^iiiw^ir'iPifj^^i*^^^: 


£ibrarj(>  of t:he  theological  ^tmxnwy 

PRINCETON   .   NEW  JERSEY 
PRESENTED  BY 

Clarence  L,  Le crone 


Bvsi 

.T45 


1420 


1,  Penn'a. 


■m  MOK  18  tHE  PROWm  »f 
^gjyjEHCEL.LECRO«E 

THE  MOULD  OF  DOCTRINE. 


A  STUDY  OF 


ROMANS  VI.  17, 


AS  BEARING  ON  THE   MEANING   AND  VALUE  OF  THE    SPECIFIC 
FORM  OF  BAPTISM,  AS   APPOINTED  BY  OUR   LORD. 


JESSE  B.  THOMAS,  D.  D., 

Pastor  of  the  Fjrst  Baptist  Church  in  Pierrepont  St.,  Brooklyn,  N.  Y. 


PHILADELPHIA : 

AMEPJCAN  BAPTIST  PUBLIC ATIOX  SOCIETY, 

1420  CHESTNUT  STREET. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1883,  by  the 

AMERICAN  BAPTIST  PUBLICATION  SOCIETY, 
In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


RKPEINTKD  rSOM  THB  "  EXAMINEK. 


CONTENTS, 


CHAPTEll   I. 


The  Baptists  and  the  Bible 5 

Fidelity  or  Stubbornness — AYhich?  8 — The 
Charge  of  Ritualism,  12 — The  Specific  Case 
Considered,  13 — The  Question  of  Catholicity, 
17— The  War  About  a  Word,  21. 

CHAPTER  II. 

Baptism  the  Mould  of  Doctrine 23 

A  Tendency  to  Guard  Against,  24 — What  the 
'•  Mould  "  Signifies,  27 — How  Theories  Some- 
times Grow,  30 — A  Curious  Hypothesis,  33 — 
Applying  the  Survival  Theory,  34. 

CHAPTER  III. 

Baptism,  the  Resurrection,  and  Historic  Chris- 
tianity       40 

Things  to  be  Explained,  43 — Baptism  and  the 
Resurrection,  46 — Baptism  a  Historic  Witness, 
49. 

CHAPTER  lY. 

Baptism  and  the  New  Birth. — Modern  Theories     57 
The  First  Great  Question,  Does  Baptism  Re- 
generate ?    57 — The    Second    Great   Question, 
Does  Baptism  Symbolize  Regeneration  ?   69. 

CHAPTER  V. 

Baptism   and   the   New  Birth. — The   Apostolic 

Idea 73 

Analogy  of  Roman  to  Jewish  Beliefs,  76 — Paul 
Against  these  Beliefs,  78 — The  Central  Truth 
of  Christianity,  82 — Baptism  Not  a  Purifica- 
tion, 85. 

3 


4  CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER  YI. 

Baptism  axd  the  New  Birth — Perversions  and 

TIIKIR  SouRc?:s 90 

The  Symbolism  of  the  Ordinances,  91 — What 
Does  Infant  Baptism  Mean  ?  94 — llow  Sprink- 
ling is  Defended,  98 — An  Enormous  (Contradic- 
tion, 101 — How  Infant  Baptism  Arose,  104. 

CHAPTER  VII. 

Baptism  and  the  New  Birth — Results  of  Per- 

VERSI.^N 101 

Unitarianism  and  its  Orisrin,  113 — Luther's 
Great  Inconsistency,  115 — Spiritual  Baptism 
and  the  New  Birth,  119 — Evolution  Fallacies 
Anticipated,  122. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 

Baptism  and  Loyalty — The  Historic  Idea 127 

Luther's  Prophecy  Historically  Realized,  132 — 
Freedom,  Civil  and  Intellectual,  Demanded,  135 
— The  Anabaptists  and  this  Demand,  139 — Re- 
formers of  the  Reformation,  14]. 

CHAPTER  IX. 

Baptism  and  Loyalty — Debasing  the  Standards  147 
A  Remnant  of  Rome,  151-— First,  The  Revision 
of  Formularies,  153 — Second,   The  Warping  of 
Interpretation,    158 — Some      Illustrative      In- 
stances, 160. 

CHAPTER  X 

Baptism  and  Loyalty — The  Ultimate  Issue 168 

First,  The  Parable  of  the  Disobedient  Son, 
171 — Second,  The  Parable  of  the  Rebellious 
Tenants,  175— Third,  The  Parable  of  the  Con- 
temptuAis  Servants,  176 — Baptism  the  Test  of 
Loyaltv,  181 — A  Linguistic  Agnosticism,  182 
—The  Witnessing  Word.  188. 


The  Mould  of  Doctrine. 


CHAPTER  I. 

THE  BAPTISTS  AND  THE  BIBLE. 

IN  the  Autobiography  of  Dr.  Lyman  Beeclier 
(vol.  ii.,  p.  87),  in  a  letter  addressed  by  him 
to  his  son  Edward,  then  preparing  for  the  Con- 
gregational ministry,  occurs  this  curious  passage: 
*^  There  is  only  one  thing  which  you  will  have 
to  watch  and  pray  against;  that  is  the  morbid 
sensibility  of  what  may  be  termed  a  nervous 
conscience;  by  which  I  mean  a  conscience  made 
preternaturally  sensitive  and  fearful.  This  I 
have  reason  to  believe  has  w^orried  many  a 
man  till  he  became  a  Baptist  through  excess  of 
conscience."  So  wholesome  a  recoil  did  this 
paternal  caution  produce  from  "excess  of  con- 
science," that  not  only  did  the  young  student 
abandon  his  growing  Baptist  predilections,  but 
no  one  of  Dr.  Beecher's  household  has  ever 
siuce  been  driven  thus  by  conscience  into  the 
Baptist  ranks. 

The  notion  here  insinuated,  that  Baptist  con- 


6  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTlilJSE. 

scientiousness  is  at  bottom  only  scrupulosity, 
highly  flavored  with  obstinacy,  is  not  unusual, 
and  perhaps  under  all  the  circumstances  not  un- 
natural, in  the  casual  observer.  The  skillful 
partisan  knows  how  to  seize  an  apt  point  of  cir- 
cumstance, to  present  an  imposing  front  by  mar- 
shalling his  meagre  facts  into  a  battle-line  long 
though  thin,  and  so  to  win  by  impression  rather 
than  by  measuring  weapons.  In  the  court  of 
prejudice  the  brilliancy  of  the  indictment  is 
accepted  as  conclusive  of  the  facts,  and  judicial 
inquiry  is  dispensed  with. 

Such  an  opportunity  has  been  afforded,  and 
abundantly  improved,  in  the  recent  dealings 
between  the  Baptists  and  the  American  Bible 
Society.  Consider  how  formidable  a  case  may 
be  made  by  the  bare  statement  of  a  few  facts, 
with  plausible  inferences  therefrom,  viz. : 

1.  The  real  question  at  issue  is  the  translation 
of  a  single  word,  and  that  in  a  single  sense — 
the  Bible  Society  being  willing  to  translate  the 
Greek  word  by  a  "generic"  term,  or  to  transfer 
it  untranslated. — Did  ever  "jot  and  tittle'^  breed 
60  great  a  controversy  before? 

2.  Because  the  Society  will  not  concede  this 
point,  the  Baptists  alone  of  all  the  co-operating 
denominations  withdraw.  —  What  a  wanton 
breach  of  the  "Unity  of  Christendom,"  because 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  7 

an  unsectarian  Society  will  not  violate  its  organic 
and  fundamental  principle ! 

About  these  two  main  positions  now  deploy 
a  skirmish  line  of  supplementary  suggestions, 
such  as: 

3.  The  Baptists  cling  tenaciously  to  immersion 
as  the  only  baptism. — How  absurd  to  obstruct 
the  coming  reign  of  "sweetness  and  light '^  by 
thus  superstitiously  exalting  the  "  letter ''  above 
the  "spirit"  of  the  ordinance! 

4.  The  Baptists  stand  almost  alone  "against 
the  Western  world  ^^  in  this. — How  presump- 
tuous in  them  to  condemn  the  ancient  church 
by  rejecting  infant  baptism!  How  arrogant  to 
reflect  upon  the  present  church  by  their 
"close  communion''  doctrine! 

6.  The  Baptists,  as  known  in  history,  have 
somehow  been  pretty  uniformly  "in  the  oppo- 
sition."— This  seems  to  suggest  some  inherent 
waywardness  of  temper,  or  obliquity  of  doctrine, 
tending  to  the  theory  that  the  only  way  to 
"please  God"  is  to  be   "contrary  to  all  men." 

Probably  the  above  counts  would  be  regarded 
by  the  most  rancid  anti-Baptist  as  sufficiently 
vigorous  and  comprehensive  to  present  the  case 
in  its  strongest  features,  (and  perhaps  in  his 
judgment  to  close  it  in  the  opening.)  But  patient 
examination  will   often  show  how  a   statement 


8  THE  MOULD    OF  DOC  THINE, 

even  of  undeniable  facts  may,  by  an  omission,  a 
misconstruction,  or  the  suggestion  of  a  mis- 
leading inference,  tend  to  a  conclusion  specious, 
but  utterly  false. 

Let  us  begin  then  with  the  last  of  the  charges, 
which  being  at  that  end  of  the  case  naturally 
carries  the  sting,  is  most  venomous,  and  first  felt. 

FIDELITY   OR  ST aBBORNNESS — WHICH? 

Some  recent  New  England  monographs  upon 
the  early  Baptists  of  that  realm  seem  devoted  to 
the  establishment  concerning  them  of  Elihu's 
thesis  against  Job,  "What  man  is  like  Job,  who 
drinketh  up  scorning  as  water? '^  Now  if  supe- 
rior success  in  getting  before  magistrates,  behind 
prison  bars,  into  the  pillory,  or  out  of  the  com- 
monwealth, fairly  demonstrates  a  craving  for 
misery  and  hate,  then  some  of  our  forefathers 
seem  to  have  had  a  really  cavernous  appetite  for 
that  kind  of  luxury,  and  no  stinted  supply.  And 
by  the  same  rule  so  did  the  early  martyrs.  But 
before  concluding  so  uncharitably,  in  either  case, 
it  is  well  to  consider  the  reasonableness  of  their 
own  explanation ;  that  the  suifering  was  endured 
rather  than  coveted,  as  a  logical  necessity  of 
fidelity  to  a  doctrine  precious  above  life  to  them, 
but  sought  to  be  exterminated  by  others. 

But  how  can  fidelity  concerning  a  mere  iso- 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  9 

lated  rite  create  any  logical  necessity  in  realms 
of  conduct  and  controversy  so  wide  and  so 
distant?  Because  this  necessity  is  not  at  once 
obvious,  its  existence  has  been  too  often  ignored 
or  denied,  and  loyalty  to  principle  has  been 
mocked  as  stubbornness  of  self-will. 

"It  is  the  singular  and  distinguished  honor  of 
the  Baptists,''  says  Herbert  Skeats,  in  his  History 
of  the  Free  Churches  of  England  ^  "  to  have  repu- 
diated, from  their  earliest  history,  all  coercive 
power  over  the  consciences  and  the  actions  of 
men  with  reference  to  religion.  No  sentence  is 
to  be  found  in  all  their  writings  inconsistent  with 
those  principles  of  Christian  liberty  and  willing- 
hood  which  are  now  equally  dear  to  all  the  free 
Congregational  Churches  of  England.  They 
were  the  proto-evangelists  of  the  voluntary  prin- 
cipled' Mr.  Skeats  adds  in  a  note,  that  he  is 
not  himself  a  Baptist.  This  adds  value  to  his 
testimony  as  impartial,  but  it  suggests  also  a 
further  and  pertinent  thought.  One  would 
suppose  that  so  unique  and  persistent  a  coinci- 
dence, of  peculiar  doctrinal  tenets  and  allegiance 
to  a  peculiar  principle,  would  have  hinted  some 
possible  causal  relation  between  the  two.  But 
he  appears  to  have  no  suspicion,  even,  that  the 
alliance  is  more  than  accidental.    In  like  manner 

^  London  edition,  1869,  p.  24. 


10  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

Gervinus,  in  his  Introduction  to  Uie  History  of  the- 
Niiideeiith  Cerdury^  writing  of  the  Anabaptists, 
couples  together  their  "refusal  to  baptize  infants^' 
by  State  command,  and  their  "return  to  the  fun- 
damental maxims  of  liberty  and  equality  for 
■which  men  were  redeemed  by  Christ,"  "antici- 
pating principles  which  could  only  be  established 
in  later  times" — but  he  does  not  recognize  any 
mutual  dependence  of  the  two  ideas.  Bogue 
and  Bennett,  in  their  History  of  Dissentet^s,^ 
notice  it  as  a  ''singular  fact  that  Baptists  have 
universally  been  independents,  when  in  the  nature 
of  things  there  might  have  been  Episcopal  or  Pres- 
byterian Baptists^'  Even  within  a  few  months 
the  New  York  Independent  asked  editorially,  in 
a  puzzled  way,  why  the  rejection  of  infant  bap- 
tism and  of  sprinkling  should  so  uniformly  have 
clung  together. 

Since  men  act  from  motives,  and  motives  arise 
out  of  beliefs,  it  is  but  just  and  charitable  first 
to  seek  an  explanation  of  conduct  in  some  cog- 
ency of  conviction;  and  only  when  that  resource 
fails  to  attribute  it  to  caprice  or  some  baser 
motive. 

Reverting  now  to  the  suggestion  that  the  great 
body  of  Christendom  are  united  against  the  Bap- 

'  London,  1866,  pp.  29,  30. 
»  London,  1808,  vol.  I.,  p.  142. 


TEE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  11 

tists  as  to  their  peculiar  views,  it  is  enough  to  cite 
in  response  Bishop  Jewell's  words  in  his  apology,  ^ 
"  Unity  is  not  a  sign  of  truth.  There  was  per- 
fect unity  among  the  Israelites  when  they  wor- 
shipped the  golden  calf."  "  The  old  Arians  called 
themselves  CatJiolic,  and  stigmatized  the  Ortho- 
dox as  Ambrosians  and  Athanasians/^  If  ma- 
jorities alone  establish  "catholicity/^  then  is 
Rome  really  more  catholic  than  Protestantism, 
and  Paganism  more  so  than  all  of  us  together. 
If  divergence  from  the  majority,  either  in  the 
past  or  the  present,  seems  to  savor  of  presump- 
tion or  arrogance,  it  is  still  the  inevitable  penalty 
of  trying  to  do  right.  Luther  sometimes  felt 
the  seeming  rashness  of  the  attitude  he  and  his 
comrades  had  assumed  toward  "the  Pope  and 
the  Doctors,  and  the  whole  body  of  the  Church,'^ 
while,  as  he  quaintly  said,  "there  is  not  wit 
enough  among  us  to  cure  a  spavined  horse.'' 
But  he  did  not  flinch,  and  the  Reformation  be- 
came secure.  If  an  honest  effort  to  improve 
upon  the  decayed  or  perverted  habits  of  the 
community  be  a  reflection  upon  one's  neighbor, 
who  can  measure  the  arrogance  of  a  man  who 
buys  a  new  hat  before  his  neighbors  are  supplied. 
"Master,  saying  this,  thou  reproachest  us  also," 

1  Cited  in  Hunt's  History  of  Religious  TJwught  in 
England  (London,  1870),  p.  44. 


12  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

siiid  the  lawyer  to  our  Lord,  as  though  such  a 
consequence  must  lead  him  to  review  or  with- 
draw his  words.     But  the  words  stand. 

THE   CHARGE    OF   RITUALISM. 

Turning  the  wheel  one  notch  further  back, 
we  come  to  the  third  charge  against  the  Baptists 
as  specified  above — ^the  familiar  charge,  (so  "  fa- 
miliar" indeed  as  to  have  bred  "contempt/') 
that  they  value  form  above  essence,  and  so  be- 
come mere  ritualists.  The  freedom  of  dealing 
with  the  ordinance  by  others  is  applauded  by 
way  of  contrast,  as  exalting  the  "spirit''  above 
the  "letter."  Probably  those  who  follow  this 
line  of  suggestion  do  not  see  that  they  are  ad- 
vocating the  entire  abolition,  and  not  the  modi- 
fication, of  the  external  ordinances.  Was  the 
Apostle  in  contrasting  the  terms  "  letter"  and 
"spirit"  contending  for  literal  circumcision  on  a 
reduced  scale?  Coleridge,  criticizing  Jeremy 
Taylor's  discussion  in  this  line,  says^  "his  only 
plausible  arguments  apply  equally  to  the  Pedo- 
baptists  and  the  Baptists,  and  prove  the  Quakers 
right  if  anybody."  But  Neander^  tells  us  that 
George  Fox,  the  chief  interpreter  of  the  Quak- 
ers, went  further,  and  argued  the  subordination 

1  Works  (N.  Y.,  1853),  vol.,  Aids  to  Re/.,  p.  336. 
^History  of  Chrislian  Dogmas  (Bohn,  1858),  vol.  II., 
p.  G33. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  13 

of  all  the  "letter"  of  Scripture  to  the  "inward 
light,"  on  the  same  grounds  that  the  Catholics 
subject  it  to  the  authority  of  the  "  Church,"  and 
Meier  and  his  followers  to  that  of  "reason." 
Socinus,  too,  the  early  herald  of  Unitarianism, 
denieii  the  permanence  of  water  baptism,  re- 
garding its  early  observance  a  concession  to  the 
carnalism  of  Jews  and  heathen.  Along  this 
same  drift  went  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson,  trans- 
cendentalizing  the  Scripture,  and  breaking  finally 
from  the  Unitarians,  because  he  would  not  par- 
ticipate in  the  superstitious  prolongation  of  a 
"mere  form"  in  the  Lord^s  Supper. 

A  command  to  do  a  particular  thing  is  not 
obeyed  by  doing  some  other  thing,  however 
similar.  And  as  its  issuance  implies  wisdom 
and  authority,  to  attempt  to  improve  upon  it  is 
to  assume  superior  wisdom,  and  to  release  from 
it  is  to  arrogate  superior  authority.  The  Bap- 
tists are  simply  guilty  of  refusing  to  do  either. 

THE   SPECIFIC   CASE   CONSIDERED. 

But  to  consider  the  more  specific  case  in  hand, 
as  set  forth  in  the  second  of  the  above  com- 
plaints. Baptists,  it  is  alleged,  having  entered 
with  others  into  a  "catholic"  and  " unsectarian " 
organization,  sought  to  induce  its  managers  to 
violate  the  original  agreement  between  the  par- 


14  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE, 

ties,  and  prostitute  the  institution  to  a  sectarian 
end,  and  failing  in  this,  they  have  broken  up 
the  unity  of  American  Christians  in  Bible  work. 
The  managers  of  the  Bible  Society  in  the  leading 
article  of  their  official  paper.  The  liecoi^d  (for 
June  15, 1882),  which  was  intended  to  be  a  kind 
of  irenicon  to  the  Baptists,  have  not  been  able  by 
a  most  courteous  and  dexterous  statement  of  the 
ciise  to  avoid  the  virtual  renewal  of  this  heavy 
cliarge.  They  say  "the  Society  was  formed  in 
1816  with  one  specific  object,"  which  the  mana- 
gers have  since  aimed  to  carry  out  "  in  a  manner 
entirely  free  from  sectarianism  and  partisanship." 
In  illustration  of  this  they  add,  that  the  Society 
^'  has  never  printed  or  circulated  the  Douay  Bible 
or  the  Rhemish  Testament,  or  appropriated  funds 
for  this  purpose ; "  that  "  it  is  a  principle  of  the 
Society  to  circulate  no  versions  except  those 
which  are  made  from  the  original  Greek  and 
Hebrew,  and  this  rule  excludes  from  its  list  certain 
versicms  in  French,  Spanish,  Portuguese,  and 
Italian,  translated  from  the  Vuk/ateJ^ 

Beferring  to  the  request  of  the  Missionary 
Union  for  funds  to  publish  "  two  versions  of  the 
Bible  whixih  have  been  long  in  use  in  Burmah/^ 
one  of  them  ''well  knoum  as  Dr.  Judson's  version, 
the  early  editions  of  tohich  had  been  printed  at  the 
Socieiy^s  expeTise/^  the  other  "Dr.  Mason's  Karen 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  15 

Bible/*  they  add  that  having  been  examined  "in 
regard  to  their  catholicity  and  the  fidelity  of  their 
translation/^  they  were  found  ^^defixiiefnt  in  the 
quality  of  catholicity,  and  therefore  could  not  he 
lyroperly  recommended  for  adoption  J'  This  lack 
of  catholicity,  they  explain,  is  evidenced  by  the 
fact  that  some  of  those  using  Dr.  Judson's  ver- 
sion do  so  "  under  protest,  being  constrained,  for 
conscience  sake,  in  the  public  reading  of  Scrip- 
ture to  substitute  other  words  for  those  selected 
by  Dr.  Judson  to  indicate  the  rite  of  baptism." 
They  further  remind  the  public,  that  "as  long 
ago  as  1836''  they  offered  "$5,000  to  those  who 
were  then  interested  in  Dr.  Judson's  work,  to 
promote  the  circulation  of  any  versions  which 
all  the  denominations  represented  in  the  Society 
could  consistently  use  and  circulate  in  their  several 
schools  and  communities,  and  the  offer  was  de- 
clined." The  article  in  question  is  entitled 
"Limitations,"  and  its  whole  aim  is  to  show, 
as  above  indicated,  that  the  Baptists  have 
ignorantly  or  craftily  attempted  to  betray  the 
Managers  into  trangressing  the  Society's  or- 
ganic "limitations,"  and  this  being  refused,  have 
unreasonably,  if  not  dishonorably,  revolted. 

But  before  accepting  this  as  a  new  illustration 
that  the  Baptists  are  like  porpoises,  with  their 
heads  always  instinctively  to  the  wind,  let  us  ask 


3fi  TEE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE, 

wliether,  in  this  as  in  many  other  cases,  it  may 
not  be  the  wind  that  has  changed  instead  of  the 
porpoises. 

What,  then,  was  the  "specific  object ''  for 
which  tlie  Bible  Society  was  established?  As 
stated  in  its  own  documents,  it  was  the  circula- 
tion^ of  "received  versions  where  they  exist," 
and  the  "most  faithful  translations"  where  there 
are  no  received  versions.  Under  that  original 
compact  they  recognize  to  this  day  their  obliga- 
tion to  print  only  King  James'  English  version, 
without  inquiring  into  its  "catholicity,"  or  the 
superior  "  faithfulness  "  of  later  revisions.  Their 
"  limitations "  as  rigidly  still  bind  them  to  spread 
that  as  to  reject  others.  Under  the  plain  letter 
of  their  mutual  contract  (to  which  the  Roman 
Catholics  were  not  a  party,  either),  they  published, 
at  least  up  to  1840,  Roman  Catholic  translations 
of  the  Vulgate.  A  report  in  their  minutes  of 
that  year,  referring  to  this  fact,  says :  ^ "  In  for- 
eign countries  we  were  to  publish  4n  received 
versions  where  they  exist,  and  in  the  most  faith- 
ful translations  where  they  do  not.'  These  ^re- 
ceived versions'  alluded  to  were  no  doubt  the 
French,  Spanish,  Portuguese,  German,  Italian, 
Arabic,  Syriac,  Armenian,  etc.,  as  old  or  older 

^  A.  B.  Society  Report,  1840. 
2  lb.,  pp.  33,  34. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE,  17 

tlian  the  English,  and  which  the  Society  could 
not  expect  to  alter."  Now  in  this  group  are  the 
very  versions  mentioned  by  the  Managers  in  1882 
as  excluded  from  their  list  by  a  "  principle  of  the 
Society,"  to  "  circulate  no  versions  "  made  "  from 
the  Vulgate,"  but  only  those  '^made  from  the 
original  Greek  and  Hebrew."  When  and  how 
this  ^^ principle"  came  in  does  not  appear. 


If  their  being  "received  versions"  be  denied 
or  ignored,  and  the  question  turn  on  their  being 
"  faithful  and  catholic  translations,"  it  may  well 
be  answered:  1.  That  they  fully  meet  the  So- 
ciety's standard  of  catholicity,  their  only  test 
being  the  treatment  of  the  word  for  baptism; 
2.  That  if  translations  based  on  the  Vulgate  be 
presumably  inferior — ^the  stream  being  less  pure 
than  the  fountain — ^those  based  on  the  English 
must  be  still  worse,  as  coming  from  still  lower 
in  the  stream — the  English  itself  being  derived 
chiefly  through  the  Vulgate  from  the  Greek. ^ 

Whether  under  its  obligation  to  print  "re- 
ceived versions"  or  "faithful  translations"  does 
not  appear,  but  under  one  head  or  the  other  the 
Society  did  print  Dr.  Judson's  version  at  the 

^  See   Eadie  History  English  Bible  (London,  1876), 
vol.  I.,  p.  402  ;  vol.  II.,  pp.  70,  191,  et  passim. 
li 


18  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

first.  If  it  was  the  "received  version '^  then,  it 
is  now;  for  there  is  no  other.  If  it  was  a 
"faithful  translation"  then",  it  is  noAv;  for  it  has 
not  changed.  If  the  original  compact  ever 
required  its  publication  under  either  head,  it 
does  now;  for  it  is  a  first  principle  of  equity 
that  no  compact  once  entered  upon  can  be 
changed,  or  new  terms  added,  except  by  com- 
mon consent.  And  four  partners  can  no  more 
do  this  as  against  one,  than  one  as  against  four. 

But  the  Managers  of  the  Bible  Society  have 
not  only  Violated  the  rights  of  their  copartners 
by  the  forcible  insertion  of  the  words  "and 
catholic  ^^  ill  the  original  compact,  but  have  gone 
on  to  define  that  word  in  a  sense  most  invidious 
and  exclusive,  ahd  so  most  contradictory.  If  an 
unsectarian  be  a  comprehensive  and  a  sectarian  a 
divisive  spii'it,  then  has  the  Bible  Society  chosen 
for  itself  a  most  sectarian  attitude. 

It  was  scarcely  worthy  of  a  scholar  like  Dean 
Trench,  in  his  work  on  Bihle  Revision,^  to 
suggest  that  the  "so-called  Baptists"  could  not 
be  invited  to  co-operate,  "seeing  that  they  de- 
mand, not  a  translation  of  the  Scripture,  but  an 
interpretation,  and  that  in  their  own  sense."  It 
is  no  more  worthy  of  a  great  Christian  organiza- 
tion like  the  American  Bible  Society  to  brand  as 

'New  York,  18r)8,  p.  1T9. 


THE  MOULD    OF  D0CTJiI2i'E.  19 

non-catholic  a  version  of  the  Scripture,  which  in 
its  rendering  of  the  particular  word  criticized 
follows  exactly  in  the  footsteps  of  "all  the  im- 
portant ancient  Oriental  versions/'  made  b  fore 
our  modern  sects  came  into  beinfr.  Was  tlic 
ancient  Syriac  made  by  a  Baptist  for  partisan 
ends?  Was  Ulfilas  a  sectarian,  or  Luther,  or 
Henry  Martyn,  whose  Persian  Bible  this  Society 
has  probably  circulated?  But  in  all  these  trans- 
lations the  word  is  "immerse,"  or  its  equivalent.^ 
But  the  question  of  catholicity,  we  are  re- 
minded, is  in  this  case  a  practical  one.  The 
Society  comprises  various  denominations,  and  it 
must  circulate  no  versions  save  those  which  all 
alike  can  "consistently  use  and  circulate."  But 
what  can  they  ^^ consistently^^  use  and  circulate? 
Since  all  versions  are  still  to  be  conformed  "to 
the  principles  upon  which  the  American  Bible 
Society  was  originally  founded,"  it  is  fair  to 
interpret  the  word  in  the  light  of  those  prin- 
ciples as  then  announced  and  acted  on.  It 
appears,  then,  that  in  1816  the  Society  thought 
it  "consistent"  for  all  parties  to  "use  and  cir- 
culate" versions  rendering  baptize  "immerse"; 
for  they  promised  to  circulate  and  did  circulate 

1  Cf.  Bosworth,  Gothic  and  Anglo-Saxon   Versions 
(London,  1874). 


20  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

such  versions  then  and  for  a  long  time  after,' 
By  what  rule  do  the  Managers  decide  that  it  is 
inconsistent  for  a  High  Churchman  or  a  Broad 
Churchman  to  use  such  a  version,  when  these  do 
not  for  a  moment  dispute  the  meaning  of  the 
word,  but  rest  their  divergent  practice  solely  on 
the  authority,  the  one  of  the  Church,  the  other, 
with  Dean  Stanley,  of  the  Zeitgeist  According 
to  the  scholarship  of  Bishop  Titcomb's  own 
Church,  it  is  just  as  easy  to  prove  that  "im- 
merse'' means  "sprinkle''  as  that  ^'JBaptizo^^ 
does,  and  he  need  not  be  more  "  embarrassed " 
by  the  one  than  by  the  other. 

But  he  is  embarrassed  by  the  "public  reading" 
of  one  word  and  the  public  doing  of  another  and 
different  thing,  and  "consistency"  must  be  re- 
stored by  conforming  the  word  translated  to  the 
thing  done.  At  this  writing,  therefore,  transla- 
tors must,  in  order  to  reach  the  "catholicity" 
required  by  the  American  Bible  Society,  subject 
their  work  to  three  successive  processes  of  refine- 
ment :  1 .  Start  Avith  Greek  and  Hebrew  text ;  2. 
Correct  by  the  English  version ;  3.  Modify  so  as 
not  to  conflict  with  current  customs.  It  was  the 
Komanist,  Albert  Pighius,  who  said  the  Scrip- 
tures are  like  "a  nose  of  wax  which  may  be 
twisted  every  way."     They  are  certainly  never 

1  See  Bible  Society's  Record,  June  15,  1882. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTBII^E,  21 

more  pliable  than  when  fluent  in  the  process  of 
translation. 

THE   WAR  ABOUT   A   WORD. 

But  as  something  more  is  hereafter  to  be  said 
on  this  particular  theme,  it  is  well  to  pass  on  to 
the  only  remaining  point — the  supposed  folly  of 
war  about  a  word.  It  is  quite  open  to  some  of 
our  good-natured  critics  to  urge  that  the  English 
title,  ^^ Particular  Baptists  ^^  be  now  relinquished 
to  the  Americans  in  memory  of  this  controversy. 
But  it  will  be  remembered  that  it  was  the  Board 
and  not  the  Baptists  who  first  struck  at  the  word. 
It  had  been  left  untranslated,  or  rendered  by 
divers  terms  colorless  or  misleading,  as  the  Bap- 
tists believed,  without  revolt  by  them.  They 
asked  for  themselves  only  what  they  conceded  to 
others,  a  charitable  reciprocity  of  judgment  and 
dealing.  But  this  was  decided  not  to  be  "  catho- 
lic.'' And  they  "were  made  offenders  for  a 
word." 

This  event  will  have  served  a  good  purpose, 
however,  if  it  compels  renewed  attention  to  some 
questions  involved  in  or  cognate  to  the  matter  of 
Scripture  translation.  Whether  the  Scripture 
shall  be  translated  at  all  is  no  longer  a  question, 
at  least  among  Protestants;  but  it  was  once  hotly 
contested,  and  great  epochs  of  religious  history 


22  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

grew  out  of  the  contest.  Whether  it  shall  all  be 
translated,  and  if  not,  what  and  hoAv  many  words 
shall  still  be  kept  in  the  original  shadow — this, 
though  seemingly  a  smaller  question,  has  also  had 
its  not  insignificant  place  among  the  problems  of 
the  past.  The  inevitable  narrowing  of  the  issue 
here  and  now  to  a  single  word  may  well  set  us 
inquiring  also  as  to  whether  that  word,  and  the 
rite  it  describes,  have  had  their  due  consideration 
as  formative  and  conservative  forces  in  Christian 
history,  and  whether  they  are  worth  contending 
for. 

A  sentence  of  the  apostle  Paul  is  eminently 
suggestive  in  this  connection,  occurring  in  Romans 
6:  17.  In  the  New  Revision  it  reads,  "Ye 
became  obedient  from  the  heart  to  that  form 
(margin  "pattern'')  of  teaching  whereunto  ye 
were  delivered."  It  is  noticeable  that,  in  fidelity 
to  the  original,  the  marginal  rendering  in  the 
commou  version  is  the  exclusive,  form  in  the  New. 
If  the  ^^ mould  of  doctrine^^  here  alluded  to  be,  as 
will  here  be  maintained,  the  ordinance  of  baptismy 
then  the  significance  of  the  present  issue  will  be 
manifest.  For,  in  that  case,  he  Avho  breaks  the 
mould  imperils  the  doctrine. 


CHAPTER  II. 

BAPTISM  TBE  MOULD  OP  VOCTBIXE. 

TWO  master  sayings  from  great  men  will  be 
found  pertinent  in  current  religious  discus- 
sion    The  one  is  from  Lord  Bacon's  Essay  on 
Superstition,' viz.:     "There  is  a  superstition  in 
avoiding  superstition,  when  men  think  to  do  best 
if  they  go  farthest  from  the  supei-stition  formerly 
received;  therefore  care  should  be  h'-<l  t^^*  the 
good  be  not  taken  away  with  the  bad.       The 
other  is  from  Bishop  Butler  in  his  Anahgy  of 
Beligion,'  viz.:     "As  it  is  one  of  the  peculiar 
weaknesses  of  human  nature  when,  upon  a  com- 
parison  of  two  things,  one   is   found  to  be  ot 
greater  importance  than  the  other,  to   consider 
this  other  as  of  scarcely  any  importance  at  all; 
it  is  hio-hly  necessary  that  we  remind  ourselves 
how  gr^t  presumption  it  is  in  ns  to  make  light 
of  any  institutions  of  divine  appointment." 
i-Whately's  Annotated  Bacon  (Boston,  1863),  p.  178. 
J  (London,  1852),  Pt.  II.,  ch.  1,  p.  209. 


24  TUB  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

A  TENDENCY   TO   GUARD   AGAINST. 

The  reactionary  tendency  to  an  irrational  ex- 
treme is  perceptible  in  much  that  has  lately  been 
said  in  disparagement  of  ^institutional  religion.'' 
Luther  found  people  in  his  day  who  thought  the 
greater  part  of  Protestantism  consisted  in  show- 
ing their  contempt  for  Rome  by  eating  meat  on 
Friday.  There  are  some  who  measure  their 
spirituality  to-day  by  the  magnificence  of  their 
contempt  for  all  religious  forms.  Now  it  is  to  be 
hoped  that  tlie  essence  of  neither  Protestantism 
nor  spirituality  consists  in  stupidity;  and  if  not, 
it  will  be  worth  while  to  notice  that  the  really 
contemptible  thing  in  Christian  history  has  been, 
not  the  introduction  of  forms,  which  was  divine; 
but  their  unauthorized  multiplication,  and  per- 
version to  base  ends,  which  was  wholly  human. 
Let  the  parasites  suffer,  and  not  the  tree  they 
have  infested.  Because  baptism,  for  instance, 
was  once  wrongly  counted  necessary  to  salvation, 
we  need  not  now,  as  though  "reverse  of  wrong 
were  right,"  conclude  that  it  is  in  every  sense 
unnecessary.  Because,  like  its  Divine  Origi- 
nator, it  has  been  disfigured  and  loaded  with 
tawdry  mockeries,  we  are  not  bound  to  crucify 
it  between  two  thieves. 

Bishop  Butler's  caution  as  to  over-disparage- 


TUE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  25 

ment  by  contrast  reminds  us  likewise  of  the 
frequent  suggestion  that  baptism,  being  less 
important  than  other  things,  is  I'eally  u7iimpo7^- 
tant.  Here  the  illicit  expansion  of  the  partial 
into  an  universal  conclusion  seems  to  arise  from 
a  lurking  fallacy  in  the  statement  of  the  case. 
For  unless  it  be  less  important  in  every  sense 
than  all  other  things,  it  cannot  be  unimportant. 
To  say,  for  instance,  that  baptism  is  of  less 
consequence  than  faith,  because  it  does  not  save, 
is  like  saying  that  brains  are  of  less  account  than 
breath,  because  life  does  not  come  through  them. 
Breath  and  brains  are  not  rivals,  but  alike 
essential  in  their  rcsjjective  spheres — the  one  that 
life  may  exist,  the  other  that  it  may  report  itself. 
Comparing  baptism  with  Christ^s  only  other 
ordinance,  it  is  indeed  '^difficult,"  as  Dean  Stan- 
ley remarks,  "to  see  what  is  the  difference  in 
principle  in  the  Roman  Church  which  has  ren- 
dered the  practice  with  regard  to  one  sacrament 
so  exceedingly  lax,  with  regard  to  the  other  so 
exceedingly  rigid  "^  and  the  observation  need 
not  be  confined  to  Home. 

However  superciliously  treated  by  men,  the 
Kew  Testament  unquestionably  gives  baptism  a 
preeminent   place.     In   the   order  of  time  it  is 

*  Article  on  ''Baptism,"  Nineteenth  Centiry  Magor 
vine,  VI.,  p.  '<04. 


26  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTMINE. 

first.  The  two  great  transitional  epochs  of  the 
early  world,  when  Noah  Avent  through  the  flood, 
and  Israel  through  the  Red  Sea,  beginning  the 
world's  life  anew,  are  specialized  as  the  true 
prototypes  of  baptism.^  Through  it  our  Lord 
was  "  manifested  "  and  found  entrance  to  his  pub- 
lic ministry.^  Through  it  Christianity  became 
visible  on  the  day  of  Pentecost,  and  the  external 
church  began  to  be.^ 

Not  less  significant  is  its  primary  place  in  the 
order  of  symbolism ;  for  according  to  Archbishop 
Whately  it  "denotes  spiritual  birth"  as  the 
Lord's  Supper  does  "the  continual  support  of 
the  Christian  life."* 

But  a  still  deeper  primacy  of  significance  is 
attributed  to  this  sacred  ordinance  in  the  title 
given  it  by  the  apostle  Paul,  and  which  has 
suggested  these  articles.  Bishop  Wordsworth 
renders  the  verse  in  question  (Rom.  6  :  17)  as 
follows:  "You  readily  obeyed  the  mould  of 
Christian  faith  and  practice  into  which  at  your 
baptism  you  were  poured,  as  it  were,  like  soft, 
ductile,  and  fluent  metal,  in  order  to  be  cast  and 

»1  Peter  3:  21.     1  Cor.  10:  2. 

2  John  1 :  31. 

s  Acts  2  :  38. 

*  Corruptions  of  Christianity  (N.  Y.,  1880),  p.  109. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  27 

take  its  form."  ^  Adding  that  the  metaphor 
suggests  itself  to  the  apostle  naturally  in  Corinth, 
wtee  he  was  writing— a  city  famous  for  its 
castings  in  bronze.  Conybeare  and  Howson^ 
translate  the  closing  words  of  the  verse  "liter- 
ally" as  "the  mould  of  teaching  into  which  you 
are  transmitted."  In  a  note  they  remark  of  the 
context : 

St.  Paul's  view  of  the  Christian  life,  throughout  the 
sixth,  seventh,  and  eighth  chapters,  is  that  it  consists  of 
a  death  and  a  resurrection;  the  new-made  Christian  dies 
to  sin,  to  the  world,  to  the  flesh  and  to  the  law;  this 
death  he  undergoes  at  his  first  entrance  into  communion 
with  Christ,  and  it  is  both  typified  «^^  realized  when  he 
is  buried  beneath  the  baptismal  waters.  But  no  sooner 
is  he  thus  dead  with  Christ  than  he  rises  with  him ;  he 
is  made  partaker  of  Christ's  resurrection;  he  is  united 
to  Christ's  body ;  he  lives  in  Christ,  and  to  Christ ;  he 
is  no  longer  in  the  flesh,  but  in  the  spirit. 

W^HAT  THE   "mould"   SIGNIFIES. 

The  authority  of  these  leaders  of  the  English 
Church,  so  eminent  for  learning  and  candor, 
will  be  assumed  as  sufficient  to  justify  at  least 
the  preliminary  assumption  that  the  apostle  in 
this  vei-se  refers  to  baptism  as  the  "mould  of 

^Commentary  on  New  Testament  (London,  1877). 
p.  232. 

2  Life  and  Epistles  of  Paul  (New  York,  1869), 
vol.  II.,  p.  170. 


2R  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

doctrine."  The  word  here  rendered  mould 
{tupos)  carries  three  shades  of  significance,  as  is 
recognized  in  our  authorized  version  of  the  New 
Testament,  viz.: 

1.  Historic.  The  mould  has  itself  been  cast, 
and  records  unerringly  the  features  of  the  matrix 
that  formed  it.  Thus  the  unbelieving  disciple 
demanded  to  see  not  simply  marks  (stigmata)  in 
the  hands  of  the  Crucified,  but  the  unmistakable 
print  (tupos)  of  the  nails. 

2.  Symbolic.  The  mould  bears  a  distinct  out- 
line which  has  a  meaning;  always  the  same  out- 
line, and  hence  always  the  same  meaning.  The 
correspondence  here  is  not  of  Tact  and  fact,  but 
of  fact  and  idea.  In  this  sense  Adam  was  the 
^^jigure  (tupos)  of  him  who  is  to  come." 

3.  Formative.  The  mould  fixes  its  character- 
istic outlines  upon  all  its  fabrics,  so  that  their 
genuineness  is  proved  by  their  being  exact  re- 
productions of  itself.  So  Moses  was  to  make  all 
things  "according  to  the  pattern  (tupos)  shown 
him  in  the  mount." 

The  constant  idea  throughout  is  that  of  per- 
manent and  verifiable  coincidence  of  outline 
between  counterparts.  But  to  break  a  single 
line  of  the  mould  is  to  destroy  this  coincidence. 
It  no  longer  faithfully  records  its  origin,  its 
device  is  blurred,  and  all  its  products  marred. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  29 

Precisely  this  significance  the  apostle  here  attri- 
butes to  the  baptismal  mould. 

1.  Historically.  It  is  the  memorial  of  the 
dominant  fad  of  Christianity — Our  Lord's 
Resurrection  from  the  dead.  It  bears  the 
"print"  of  that  event  as  unmistakably  as  his 
hands  did  the  outline  of  the  nails.  ^'Like  as 
Christ,"  says  the  apostle  in  verse  4,  "so  we." 

2.  Symbolically.  It  is  the  palpable  "figure" 
of  the  dominant  idea  of  Christianity — ^the  New 
Birth.  This  indisputable  emblematic  force  of 
baptism  forms  the  crisis  and  justification  of  his 
whole  argument.  "Are  ye  ignorant"  of  this, 
asks  the  apostle,  in  verse  3,  as  though  such 
obtaseness  were  incredible. 

3.  Formatively.  It  is  the  faithful  exponent 
and  enforcer  of  the  dominant  principle  of  Chins- 
tianity — the  surrender  of  the  whole  man  through 
faith.  "  Ye  became  obedient  from  the  heart,"  he 
says,  therefore  "your  members"  are  all  included. 
The  "yielding  up"  in  baptism  is  the  "pattern" 
of  the  whole  subsequent  life. 

The  Epistle  to  the  Romans  is  indisputably  the 
great  doctrinal  Epistle  of  the  New  Testament. 
That  Epistle  is  but  an  elaboration  of  these  three 
elements  of  doctrine.  They  appear  at  once  in 
the  introduction  (ch.  1  :  1-7),  viz. :  the  resurrection 
of  Christ,  as  the  "declaration"  of  his  Sonship; 


30  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE, 

saintship  [i.  e,,  separatedness  to  a  new  life)  as 
the  characteristic  of  discipleship;  and  "obedi- 
ence of  faith  '^  as  the  shaping  force  in  Christian 
character.  But  all  these  again,  in  distinct  though 
germinal  outline,  are  enclosed  in  the  single  rite  of 
baptism.  If  it  seems  absurd  to  us  that  so  great 
issues  can  lie  hid  in  so  insignificant  a  thing  as  a 
"mere  rite/^  let  us  remember  that  he  who  out  of 
infinite  possibilities  selected  that  single  form,  is 
the  same  who  has  chosen  the  acorn  to  hold  un- 
counted forests,  and — a  significant  parallel — 
birth  to  hold  all  the  marvels  and  still  unexplored 
mysteries  of  life.  Recent  philosophic  and  his- 
toric discussions  remind  us  how  little  danger  of 
exaggeration  there  is  in  attributing  so  tremen- 
dous a  force  to  symbolism.  "Men  are  guided 
by  type,  and  not  by  argument,"  says  Dr.  New- 
man. "  Every  idea  vividly  before  ns/'  says  Bage- 
hot,  "soon  appears  to  be  true,  unless  we  keep  up 
our  perceptions  of  the  arguments  which  prove  it 
untrue,  and  voluntarily  coerce  our  minds  to  re- 
member its  falsehood." 

HOW   THEORIES   SOMETIMES   GROW. 

The  Puritans  maintained,  says  Hardwick  in 
his  History  of  the  Thirty-Nine  Articles,^  "with 
as  much   sagacity  as   malice,"  that   "the  right 

iBohn's  Edition  (London,  1876),  p.  206.  • 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  31 

government  of  the  Church  cannot  be  separated 
from  the  doctrine.^'  It  is  significant  that  their 
quarrel  ^vith  the  English  Church,  Luther's  with 
Rome,  and  nearly  all  the  controversies  in  the 
Church,  have  grown  out  of  the  questions  per- 
taining to  the  external,  which  were  seen  to 
involve  inevitably  the  internal  also.  Archbishop 
Whately's  Essay  on  the  Corruptions  of  Borne 
Traced  to  their  Origin  in  Human  Nature  is  a 
book  w^ell  w^orthy  of  careful  study,  and  bearing 
directly  on  the  present  theme.  He  there  says,^ 
^'  It  is  a  mistake,  and  a  very  common  and  practi- 
cally not  unimportant  one,  to  conclude  that  the 
wngin  of  each  tenet  or  practice  is  to  be  found  in 
those  arguments  or  texts  which  are  urged  in 
support  of  it;  that  they  furnish  the  cause,  on 
the  removal  of  Avhich  the  effects  w^ill  cease  of 
course;  and  that  when  once  those  reasonings  are 
exploded,  and  those  texts  rightly  explained,  all 
danger  is  at  an  end  of  falling  into  similar  errors. 
The  fact  is,  that  in  a  great  number  of  instances, 
and  by  no  means  exclusively  in  questions  con- 
nected with  religion,  the  eii^oneous  belief  or  prac- 
tice  has  arisen  first,  and  the  theory  has  been  devised 
afterwards  for  its  support.'^  Dr.  Newman's  book 
on  the  Development  of  the  Doctrine  in  the  Church 

^  Cited  iu  Annotations  on  Bacon,  p.  183. 


S2  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

of  Rome  ^  is  a  precise  illustration  of  this  state- 
ment. He  himself  describes  it  as  containing  a 
"hypothesis  to  account  for  a  difficulty;"  the 
"difficulty"  being  that  the  "successor  of  the 
Apostles"  has  plainly  repudiated  the  apostolic 
precedents  by  which  he  assumes  to  be  bound. 
Many  modern  theories  as  to  the  nature  and 
import  of  baptism,  and  the  Scriptural  terms 
describing  it,  may  justly  be  described  by  the 
same  title.  Inherited  practices  as  to  mode  and 
subject,  and  notions  as  to  symbolism  do  not 
coincide  with  Scriptural  language ;  hence  "  hypo- 
theses" ever  springing  to  account  for  the  "diffi- 
culty." Two  of  these  theories — the  Romish  and 
the  Broad  Church — distinctly  admit  that  the 
"mould"  Paul  speaks  of  has  been  broken. 
Bossuet  says,  "  We  are  able  to  make  it  appear 
by  the  acts  of  councils  and  by  ancient  ritual, 
that  for  thirteen  hundred  years  baptism  was 
administered  by  plunging."  Wall  in  his  History 
of  Infant  Baptism  says  further,  that  this  has  never 
ceased  in  any  except  a  Papal  nation.^  Dean 
Stanley,  who  may  stand  for  the  Broad  Church, 
says,  "No  existing  ritual  of  any  European 
Church  offers  any  likeness  "  to  the  apostolic  ordi- 
nance.    "  The  change  from  immersion  to  sprink- 

1  London,  1845. 

2  Ed.,  Nashville,  1860,  p.  728. 


TUB  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  33 

ling  has  sd  aside  the  large)'  part  of  the  apostolic 
laiiguage  regarding  baptism,  and  lias  altered  the 
very  meaning  of  the  word.'^  ^  For  this  frankly 
admitted  boldness  in  reconstructing  the  original 
rite,  the  Romanist  offers  as  a  justification  the 
supremacy  and  infallibility  of  the  Church.  Dean 
Stanley  proposes  instead  the  sanction  of  "the 
spirit  which  lives  and  moves  in  human  society, 
and  can   override   even   the   most   sacred  ordi- 


But  there  is  still  a  third,  and  both  curiously 
and  unfortunately,  a  far  more  modem  theory. 
Curiously,  because  if  true,  it  is  wonderful  that  it 
was  never  discovered  by  those  who  wrote  the 
primitive  Greek,  as  it  has  never  yet  occurred  to 
those  who  inherit  the  language.  Unfortunately, 
because  of  the  acres  of  apology  and  casuistry  it 
might  have  saved  if  broached  before.  This  "  hy- 
pothesis" removes  the  "difficulty"  by  a  simple 
expedient.  "The  ^ mould'  never  was  broken,"  it 
mildly  suggests,  "  for  it  was  made  of  material  so 
elastic  and  flexible  as  to  be  incapable  of  being 
broken."  A  word  was  sagaciously  chosen,  as  it 
appears,  to  describe  it,  so  plastic,  that  into  what- 
ever country  the  gospel  should  come,  its  messen- 
gers might  inquire  what  particular  form  may  be 

^  Nineteenth  Century  Magazine,  VI.,  p.  698. 
C 


34  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

most  congenial  to  the  customs,  convenience,  or 
tastes  of  the  people,  and  thereupon  answer,  "the 
word  means  that/'  We  have  heard  of  the  Judge 
who  left  it  to  the  prisoner  to  say  "  w^hat  day  w^ould 
be  convenient  for  him  to  be  hanged  " — but  never 
of  a  law  ambiguously  framed  for  the  express  pur- 
pose of  leaving  it  to  the  prisoner's  comfort  or 
caprice  how  he  should  be  hanged,  or  whether  he 
should  be  hanged  at  all.  Devotion  to  such  a 
theory  w^ould  soon  produce  for  us  a  genuinely 
"limp-back"  Bible — limp,  not  as  to  binding  only, 
but  all  the  way  through. 

These  theories,  so  extraordinary  and  so  perilous 
in  their  tendencies,  have  all  grown  out  of  a  com- 
mon exigency.  First  practically  departing  from 
the  "pattern"  Christ  had  given — ^then  "willing 
to  justify,"  rather  than  to  rectify,  that  departure 
=— men  have  successfully  substituted  for  his 
supremacy  that  of  the  Infallible  Pope,  or  the 
infallible  nineteenth  century;  or  reduced  his 
sceptre  to  a  mocking  "reed"  by  the  application 
of  the  "  flexible-interpretation "  to  his  w^ords  of 
command. 


But  if  the  original  command  w^as  in  fact  ex- 
plicit, and  the  original  rite  distinct  and  uniform, 
what  rational  explanation  can  be  given  of  diver- 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  35 

sities  so  early  and  so  great?  Here  again  we  are 
reminded  at  once  of  Archbishop  Whately's  sug- 
gestion, and  bidden  to  ask  if  there  be  any 
radical  and  constant  *' tendencies  of  human  na- 
ture" likely  to  furnish  a  clew.  Dean  Stanley's^ 
article  (in  the  Nineteenth  Century  Magazine)  on 
Baptism,  begins  with  the  remark  that  he  intends 
to  consider  "what  is  the  inner  meaning  which 
has  more  or  less  survived  all  the  changes  through 
which  it  has  passed.'^  Dr.  G.  A.  Jacob  (also  of 
the  English  Church)  remarks  of  the  baptism  of 
infants,  that  it  is  "not  to  be  found  in  the  New 
Testament,"  but  that  we  find  there  "  the  funda- 
mental idea  from  which  it  was  afterwards  de- 
vdoped."^  These  words  "survival"  and  "de- 
velopment" are  "half  in  the  speech  of  Ashdod." 
To  Ashdod  let  us  go,  therefore,  for  interpre- 
tation. 

A  "survival,"  in  scientific  parlance,  is  a  cus- 
tom or  notion  which  has  come  over  from  a 
former  state  of  society,  but  is  no  longer  in- 
telligible, because  from  gradual  loss  of  its  origi- 
nal form  or  otherwise,  its  original  meaning  has 
also  been  lost.^      The  habit,  like  a  Fourth  of 

'  Nineteenth  Century  Magazine,  YI.,  p.  685. 

2  Ecclesiastical  Polity  of  New  Testament  (New  York, 
1872),  pp.  270,  271. 

3  Tylor's  Primitive  Culture  (New  York,  1874),  voL 
I.,  p.  70,  seq. 


36  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

July  pin-wheel,  goes  on  Avhirling  after  its  fire  is 
burnt  out.  The  Tyrolese  peasant  crosses  him- 
self when  he  yawns,  the  Italian  says  Felicita 
when  his  neighbor  sneezes,  and  wise  people 
everywhere  are  troubled  at  overturning  the  salt- 
cellar. But  if  you  ask  why,  all  will  answer 
with  the  stolid  Mexican,  "Who  knows?"  The 
modern  soldier  thinks  the  hair  streaming  from 
his  helmet  a  mere  ornamental  device;  but  Mr. 
Ruskin  says  it  is  a  reminiscence  of  the  mane 
that  once  hung  down  the  back  of  the  savage, 
who  donned  the  skin  of  the  wild  beast  he  had 
killed,  to  steal  its  courage.^ 

'^Development"  in  the  scientific  sense  is  that 
process  of  change  through  which,  whether  by 
accretion  or  decretion,  by  improvement  or  degen- 
eration, customs,  and  all  things  else,  have  come 
to  their  present  form.  Every  existing  fact  is  to  be 
studied  as  a  fossil,  whose  features,  enlarged,  con- 
fused, or  worn  down  in  petrifaction,  assimilation, 
and  wave-tossing,  still  may  be  dimly  read; 
remembering  that  the  forces  that  shaped  it  are 
constant  and  calculable.  The  history  of  words, 
for  instance,  may  be  traced  Avith  considerable 
certainty,  according  to  Professor  Sayce,^  by  the 
recognition  of  three  universal  tendencies,  viz. :  "  1. 

^Ragle's  Nest  (N.  Y.,  1873),  p.  190.     ^Introduction  to 
Science  of  Language  (Loiidou,  1880),  vol.  I.,  p.  163,  seq. 


THE  MOULD   OF  DOCTRINE.  37 

Imitation  or  anaIogy^\' e.g.,  the  Chinese  trying 
to  speak  English  falls  into  Pigeon-English;  the 
Frenchman  Gallicizes  our  words  into  ros-bif  and 
bif-teck;  and  the  temporary  Parisian  perpetually 
throws  his  small  force  of  badly  drilled  French 
words  into  a  hc>llow  square,  so  as  not  to  seem  too 
exotic.  "2.  A  vnsh  to  be  dear  and  emphatie.^' 
This  taxes  the  inventive  faculty.  It  invents  new 
words,  or  new  meanings  for  old  words.  The 
modern  use  of  "evolution''  is  an  illustration. 
Every  political  campaign  produces  new  epithets 
and  catch-words,  which  sometimes  live.  In  John 
Wesley's  time  "sentimental"  was  new.  He 
wrote  of  Sterne's  Sentimental  Journey,  '' Sentl- 
mnental  is  not  English."  He  might  as  well  have 
said  Continental.  But  one  fool  makes  many. 
The  Avord  has  become  fashionable,  though  it 
means  nothing."  "3.  Laziness/^  leading  to 
"phonetic  decay."  This  clips  the  ears  and  tail, 
and  sometimes  cuts  through  the  body  of  words, 
as  in  the  slovenly  "gent"  and  "bus."  It  loses 
good  words,  or  spills  the  meaning  out  of  them. 
So  "Magdalen"  becomes  "Maudlin" — and  a 
"simple"  man  a  fool.  Through  this  unhappy 
mutilation  and  defacing  of  the  coin  of  speech  we 
are  cut  off  from  commerce  with  former  ages,  as 
with  foreign  countries,  except  through  the  inter- 
vention   of    the    philological     money-changer. 


58  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

Unliappy  it  certainly  is,  for  as  Dean  Trench 
once  remarked,  "Hardly  any  original  thoughts 
on  mental  or  social  subjects  ever  make  their  way 
among  mankind  .  .  until  aptly  selected  words  or 
phrases  have,  as  it  were,  nailed  them  down  and 
held  them  fastJ^  ^  Elsewhere  he  likens  words  to 
ships  which  "  convey  the  mental  treasures  of  one 
period  to  the  generations  that  follow :  and  laden 
with  this,  their  precious  freight,  they  sail  across 
gulfs  of  time  in  which  empires  have  suffered 
fchipwreck.'^  ^  How  harmful  then  to  tear  up  the 
fixed  symbol — to  wreck  the  freighted  ship. 

Now  all  that  is  here  said  of  words,  which  are 
forms  of  speech,  is  true  of  rites,  which  are  forms 
of  action,  meant  to  serve  a  like  end,  and  subject 
to  peril  from  like  causes.  To  be  like  the  heathen, 
Jeroboam  made  a  golden  calf,  through  which  to 
worship  the  true  God.  In  like  spirit  Rome  has 
since  borrowed  the  mass  from  Buddhists,  and 
holy  water  from  Pagan  temples.  Israel  "forgot 
his  Maker,^'  but  emphasized  his  religiosity  by 
"building  temples.'^  Rome  "shortened  the  Deca- 
logue, but  lengthened  the  Creed ; "  she  took  the 
cup  from  the  laity — but  added  the  elevation  and 

1  On  the  Study  of  Words,  (New  York,  Twenty.fifth 
Ed.),  p.  26. 

2/6.,  p.  28. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  39 

adoration  of  the  host,  and  multiplied  idle  cere- 
monies. 

To  satisfy  the  people's  love  of  ease  she  has,  in 
Dean  Stanley's  words,  had  the  ^'  boldness "  to 
*'  substitute  a  few  drops  of  water  for  the  ancient 
bath."  "Through  the  history  of  sacrifice,"  says 
Mr.  Tylor,  in  his  Primitive  Culture^  "it  has 
occurred  to  many  nations  that  cost  may  be 
economized  without  impairing  efficiency."  Ac- 
cordingly, "  in  Madagascar  the  head  of  the  sacri- 
ficed beast  is  set  upon  a  pole,  and  the  blood  and 
fat  are  rubbed  on  the  stones  of  the  altar"  (in 
lieu  of  the  gift  of  the  whole  beast,  as  formerly) ; 
"and  Scotchmen  still  living  remember  the  corner 
of  a  field  being  left  untilled  for  the  Goodman's 
croft  {i.  e.,  the  devil's);  but  the  principle  of 
^clieating  the  deviV  was  already  in  vogue,  and  the 
piece  of  land  allotted  was  hut  a  worthless  scraps  ^ 

lEd.,  New  York,  1874,  vol.  II.,  pp.  370,  399-402. 


CHAPTER  III. 

BAPTISM,    THE  RESURRECTION,    AND    HISTORIC 
CHRISTIANITY. 

BAPTISM  is  defined  by  the  Congregational 
Union  of  England  and  Wales  in  their  de- 
liverance of  1833,  to  be  "the  application  of  water 
to  the  subject"  in  the  name  of  the  Trinity.^  The 
whole  significance  of  the  rite,  according  to  this 
definition,  is  in  the  natural  symbolism  of  water 
as  a  cleansing  agent,  "  putting  away  the  fihh  of 
of  the  flesh."  The  writer  of  Ecce  Homo  inter- 
prets the  Lord's  Supper  by  a  similar  rule.  "  The 
meal  consisted  of  bread  and  wine,  the  simplest 
and  in  those  countries  most  universal  elements  of 
of  food."  "A  common  meal  is  the  most  natural 
and  universal  way  of  expressing,  maintaining, 
and  as  it  were  ratifying  relations  of  friendship." 
The  primary  idea  being  therefore  the  expression 
of  mutual  friendship,  "  The  Christian  communion 
is  a  club-dinner  J^^ 

Accepting  these  suggestions  as  quite  in  their  line, 

1  Schaff,  Creeds  of  Christendom,  vol.  III.,  p.  732. 

2  Ecce  Homo  (Boston,  1868),  pp.  187,  188. 

40 


THE  MOULD   OF  DOCTRINE.  41 

the  modern  "evolution"  school  push  them  to  their 
logical  issue  in  the  denial  of  any  authoritative 
institution  or  historic  significance  in  either  ordi- 
nance. Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  devotes  his  book 
on  Ceremonial  Institutions  mainly  to  "reasons 
for  rejecting  the  current  hypothesis  that  cere- 
monies originate  in  conscious  symbolization,  and 
for  enteitaining  the  belief  that  in  evei^y  case  they 
originate  by  evolution  J'  ^  Mr.  Tylor  in  his  Prim- 
itive Culture  concludes  that  according  to  the 
"  ethnographic  method  in  theology,"  "  a  vast  pro- 
portion of  doctrines  and  rites  knowTi  among 
mankind  are  not  to  be  judged  as  direct  pr'oducts 
of  the  particular  religious  systems  which  give  them 
sanction;  for  they  are  in  fact  more  or  less  modi- 
fied results  adopted  from  previous  systems.^  He 
instances  baptism,  assuming  it  to  consist  simply 
in  the  "application  of  water,"  as  a  mere  prolong- 
ation of  heathen  lustration — water  being  in 
either  case  the  natural  and  universal  symbol  of 
purifying  agency.^  By  parity  of  reasoning  the 
Lord's  Supper  would  find  its  origin  and  sufficient 
explanation  in  the  primitive  custom  of  "  eating 
salt"  together  as  a  pledge  of  mutual  fidelity. 

By  this  process  all  reminiscence  of  Christ  or 
his  work  is  boldly  purged  out  of  both  ordinances, 
and   the   historic   relations   of    Christianity   are 

» (New  York,  1880.)  2  YqI.  II.,  p.  451.  ^  /^.^  pp,  430, 
441. 


42  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

practically  treated  as  unreal  or  insignificant.  If 
the  characteristic  symbols  of  our  faith  express 
only  or  mainly  the  present  and  isolated  fact  of 
our  purification  through  water,  and  our  fellow- 
ship through  bread  and  wine,  why  busy  ourselves 
with  a  past  to  which  they  do  not  point  us?  What 
to  us,  then,  more  than  to  Festus,  are  those  ^^ques- 
tions of  their  own  superstition,"  especially  "of 
one  Jesus  which  was  dead,  whom  Paul  affirmed 
to  be  alive."  The  Scotch  Sermom  of  1880  plainly 
state  that  the  great  battle  of  the  last  century  over 
the  credibility  of  the  miraculous  was  "an  affair 
of  outposts  altogether,"  and  touched  "no  vital 
point  of  revelation."  Strauss  flattered  himself 
at  first  that  liis  view  w^as  "more  Christian  than 
the  old  Christian  one  itself,"  for  although  he  had 
sought  to  obliterate  the  historic  Christ,  it  was 
only  that  he  might  substitute  for  the  transient 
person  an  eternal  idea.  "Not  by  immersion;" 
says  Canon  Curteis,  in  considering  what  conces- 
sions the  Church  of  England  may  make  to  win 
back  Dissenters,  "in  that  point  the  Church's 
freedom  must  be  unflinchingly  maintained  in 
order  to  teach  the  spirituality  of  the  Lord's  sacra- 
ments,  by  using  the  drop  of  water  and  the  frag- 
ment of  bread  to  represent  the  regenerating  bath 
and  the  eucharistic  feast."  ^  That  is  to  say,  the 
^  Damp.  Lee,  isn.    ''Dissent.,  etc"  (London),]).  289. 


TEE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  43 

idea  is  only  truly  to  be  propagated  by  effacing 
the  formative  fact,  the  "spirit"  only  by  defacing 
the  significant  "  letter." 

THINGS   TO   BE   EXPLAINED. 

But  facts  are  not  destroyed  by  supercilious 
treatment,  and  it  is  unavailing  to  attempt  the 
ideal  reconstruction  of  a  history  which  has  not 
first  been  actually  abolished.  The  primary 
question  is  one,  not  of  theory,  but  of  testimony. 
The  assailant  of  Christianity  from  the  side  of 
historic  criticism  is  therefore  called  to  explain  the 
following  indisputable  circumstances: 

1.  The  continuous  and  uniform  belief  of  the 
church,  from  the  first  century,  that  it  had  its 
origin  in  the  facts  narrated  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment. 

2.  The  existence,  as  acknowledged  even  by 
the  most  extravagant  criticism,  of  at  least  four  of 
Paul's  letters  (viz. :  to  the  Galatians,  the  Romans, 
and  the  two  to  the  Corinthians),  within  a  short 
generation  of  the  alleged  occurrence  of  the  facts 
therein  cited. 

3.  The  general  observance  to  this  day  of  a  rite 
which,  as  the  Apostle  reminds  the  Corinthians, 
had  been  instituted  by  our  Lord  "on  the  night 
in  which  he  was  betrayed"  as  an  enduring  testi- 
mony of  his  crucifixion. 


44  TEE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

The  value  of  this  last  link  in  the  chain  has 
been  often  urged  by  writers  on  the  evidences  of 
Christianity,  and  will  not  be  underrated  by  those 
who  are  familiar  with  the  principles  of  historic 
inquiry.  For  1.  It  reaches  back  to  the  event 
itself,  and  is  of  the  nature  of  contemporaneous 
testimony.  2.  Being  a  concrete  act  participated 
in  by  many,  its  testimony  was  unequivocal.  3. 
It  was  not  only  the  reminder  of  a  fact,  but  a 
scenic  rehearsal  of  its  very  form.  It  was  not  a 
feast,  for  it  was  established  at  a  feast.  The  bread 
and  wine  were  present,  and  were  being  shared  in ; 
but  they  told  no  story,  until  he  put  the  hrealdng 
of  the  one  and  pouring  of  the  other  into  emblem- 
atic association  with  the  breaking  of  his  body 
and  the  shedding  of  his  blood,  and  so  bade  them 
^^  show  the  Lord's  death  till  he  come.''  This 
ceremonial  is  forever  sundered  from  all  heathen 
feasts,  therefore,  not  by  the  use  of  bread  and 
wine,  which  is  common  to  both,  but  by  the  form 
of  that  use  with  which  no  heathen  rite  has  any- 
thing in  common. 

But  the  question  of  the  historic  reality  of  our 
Lord's  death  is  not,  after  all,  the  cardiiial  one  in 
the  battle  with  the  skeptics.  Serious  critica 
have  rarely  doubted  that,  or  cared  much  for  it. 
For  that  death,  in  itself,  involved  no  supernat- 
ural element,  and  could  not,  however  devoutly 


THE  MOULD   OF  DOCTRINE.  45 

believed,  fairly  account  for  Christian  history. 
The  true  crisis  of  faith  is  not  at  the  cross,  but 
at  the  sepulchre.  Did  Jesus  really  rise  from  the 
dead?  "This,"  says  Strauss,  "is  the  centre  of 
the  centre — the  real  heart  of  Christianity;" 
"with  it  the  truth  of  Christianity  stands  or 
falls." ^  "If  I  could  believe  the  resurrection," 
says  Spinoza,  "I  would  become  a  Christian  at 
once."  Ewald  says  "It is  the  culmination  of  all 
the  miraculous  events  which  are  conceivable  from 
the  beginning  of  history  to  its  close." 

To  this  respond  affirmatively  such  defenders 
of  the  faith  as  Christlieb,  "The  resurrection  is 
the  proof  of  all  other  dogmas,  the  foundation  of 
our  Christian  life  and  hope,  the  soul  of  the  entire 
apostolic  preaching,  the  corner-stone  on  which 
the  church  is  built."^  Westcott  says:  "We must 
place  it  in  the  very  front  of  our  confession,  with 
all  that  it  includes,  or  we  must  be  prepared  to 
lay  aside  the  Christian  name."  ^  "  To  preach  the 
fact  of  the  resurrection  was  the  first  function  of 
the  Evangelists;  to  embody  the  doctrine  of  the 
resurrection  is  the  great  office  of  the  church ;  to 
learn  the  meaning  of  the  resurrection  is  the  task, 
not  of   one  age   only,  but  of  all."      Fairbairn 

1  Christlieb,  Modern  Doubt,  (New  York,  1874),  p.  455. 

2  /&.,  p.  448. 

3  Gospel  of  the  Resurrection  (London,  1881),  p.  7. 


46  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

says,  "  It  created  the  church."     "  It  is  a  resumi 
of  historical  yet  supernatural  Christianity." 

There  are,  therefore,  two  great  Christian  facts : 
the  death  and  resurrection  of  Christ.  There 
are  also  two  great  Christian  ordinances:  the 
Lord's  Supper  and  Baptism.  Of  these  facts,  the 
first  would  seem  lea^  to  need  historic  witnessing, 
since  it  does  not  trench  on  the  supernatural,  and 
since  its  significance  is  mainly  for  the  believer, 
revealing  the  inner  secrets  of  salvation.  Yet  for 
its  perennial  confirmation,  as  well  as  illustration, 
provision  is  confessedly  made  in  the  Lord's 
Supper,  the  inward  fronting  rite  of  the  church. 
The  other  fact,  on  the  contrary,  fronts  the  world, 
challenging  its  scrutiny  as  miraculous,  and  de- 
manding its  assent  as  verified  by  reliable  testi- 
mony. To  this  fact,  therefore,  so  pre-eminent 
and  decisive,  it  might  reasonably  be  expected 
that  baptism,  the  only  other  Christian  rite,  and 
also  the  outward  fronting  one,  would  lend  its 
needed  and  confirmatory  testimony. 

BAPTISM   AND   THE   RESURRECTION. 

The  candid  skeptic,  however,  will  be  surprised, 
on  reading  in  the  Westminster  Catechism  that 
*' baptism  is  rightly  administered  by  pouring  or 
sprinkling  water  upon  the  person."  To  this  he 
will  find  Dr.  R.  J.  Breckeuridge,  of  Kentucky, 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  47 

naturally  adding,  "I  find  nothing  in  the  Scrip- 
tures to  warrant  the  assertion  that  there  is  7;ny 
tsacramentcU  commemoration  by  the  mode  of  bap- 
tism of  the  burial  of  the  body  of  Jesus.-^^  Hav- 
ing further  learned  from  Dr.  John  Eadie,  of 
Glasgow,  that  believers  "eyen  in  immersion  do 
not  go  through  a  process  having  any  semblance 
to  the  burial  and  resurrectimi  of  Christ^^;"^  and 
from  Dr.  Charles  Hodge,  of  Princeton,  that  in 
PauFs  words  (Rom.  6:  4) — ^'buried  with  him  by 
baptism  into  death" — "it  is  not  necessary  to  as- 
sume that  there  is  any  reference,  to  the  immersion 
of  the  body  in  baptism,  as  though  it  were  a 
burial;  "  ^  he  will  probably  be  puzzled  to  account 
for  the  zeal  and  ingenuity  put  forth  in  dis- 
proving concerning  one  ordinance  what  is  so 
eagerly  claimed  for  the  other,  and  is  equally 
presumable  of  both — that  they  Avere  meant  to 
be  commemorative  as  well  as  symbolic.  This 
probative  function  may  be  lightly  valued  now^, 
but  "from  the  beginning  it  was  not  so." 

The  peculiar  evidential  value  of  PauFs  state- 
ments concerning  the  facts  and  institutions  of 
early  Christianity  has  been  more  and  more 
recognized  of  late.     He  was  at  the  time  of  his 

1  Knowledge  of  God  Subjectively  Considered,  p.  572. 

2  Commentary  on  Colossians  (London,  1856),  p.  154. 

3  Commentary  on  Romans  (Philadelphia,  1864),  p. 
305. 


48  THE  MOULD   OF  BOCTIIINE, 

oonvei'sion  a  mature  man,  of  too  high  culture  and 
too  wide  observation  to  be  charged  with  super- 
stition or  shallowness.  He  had  too  much  at 
stake  to  be  risked  on  the  unverified  assumption 
of  so  stupendous  a  fact  as  the  resurrection  of 
Christ  from  the  dead.  He  saw  as  clearly  as 
niaoteen  centuries  have  proved  to  us,  that  on  the 
reality  of  that  fact  all  else  hung — for  without  it 
he  declared  his  "faith  was  vain."  His  letters 
are  among  the  earliest,  if  not  the  very  earliest,  of 
the  New  Testament  documents,  and  four  of  them 
stand,  as  before  remarked,  unchallenged  to  this 
day.  In  two  of  these  (Romans  and  1  Corinthians), 
written  to  be  publicly  read  in  metropolitan  heathen 
cities  within  about  twenty-five  years  of  its 
alleged  occurrence,  he  distin(;tly  claims  the  reality 
of  the  resurrection  as  an  established  and  com- 
monly admitted  fact.  As  justifying  this,  he 
refers  implicitly  to  the  testimony  of  "  the  greater 
part"  of  "more  than  five  hundred  brethren"  still 
surviving  the  event;  and  explicitly  to  that  of  the 
abiding  ordinance  which,  as  he  reminds  the 
Romans,  is  the  "  likeness  of  Christ's  resurrection," 
and  which  he  assures  the  Corinthians  is  meaning- 
less, if  it  do  not  mean  that.  For  so,  according 
to  the  uniform  custom  of  the  early  interpreters, 
we  are  to  interpret  1  Cor.  15:  29.^ 

*  Stanley,  Commentary  on  Corinthians  (London,  1876), 
p.  304. 


THE  MOULD   OF  DOCTRINE.  49 


BAPTISM   A   HISTORIC   WITNESS. 

Baptism,  bearing  this  legible  "imprint/*  was 
in  Paul's  esteem  a  historic  monument^  1.  Of  the 
fact  that  Christ  had  risen.  2.  Of  the  preeminence 
of  the  fact,  and  its  consequent  primary  place  in 
Christian  doctrine.  3.  Of  the  corporeality  of  the 
fact,  as  against  all  mysticizing  tendencies.  It 
follows,  therefore,  that  by  the  abandonment  of 
its  appointed  form,  baptism  ceases  to  be  a  witness 
to  the  reality  of  the  resunrdion.  Of  Paul's  allu- 
sion in  Rom.  6 ;  4,  5,  Conybeare  and  Howson  say, 
"  This  passage  cannot  be  understood  unless  it  be 
borne  in  mind  that  the  primitive  baptism  was  by 
immersion.''  Dr.  Schaff  says,  '^All  commefntators 
of  note  (except  Stuart  and  Hodge)  expressly  ad- 
mit or  take  it  for  granted  that  in  this  verse  .... 
the  ancient  prevailing  mode  of  baptism  by 
immersion  is  implied,  as  giving  force  to  the  idea 
of  going  down  of  the  old  and  rising  up  of  the  new 
man.'^^  The  obviousness  of  the  parallelism  is 
implied  in  the  continual  coupling  together  of  tlio 
two  ideas  in  Scripture,  and  in  the  writings  and 
emblematism  of  the  early  Christians.  Christ's 
Messiahship  was  "manifested"  by  his  baptism, 
his  Sonship  was  "declared'^  by  his  resurrection? 

>  Lange's  Commentary  on  Romans  (New  York,  1869), 
Note,  p.  202.    '  John  1 :  31 ;  Rom.  1  :  4. 
D 


50  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

The  apostles  were  ordained  to  be  "witnesses  of 
his  resurrection,"  "beginning  with  the  baptism 
of  John."  If,  as  Peter  says,  the  "figure"  of 
baptism  "saves  us,"  it  is  "by  the  resurrection  of 
Jesus  Christ."  So  Cyril,  of  Jerusalem,  says, 
"  Thou  going  down  into  the  water,  and  in  a  man- 
ner buried  in  the  waters  as  he  in  the  rock,  art 
raised  again,  walking  in  newness  of  life." 
Chrysostom  says,  "For  as  his  body,  buried  in 
the  earth ;  bore  for  fruit  the  salvation  of  the  world, 
so  also  ours  buried  in  baptism  bore  for  fruit  right- 
eousness ....  and  will  bear  also  the  final  gift  of 
the  resurrection."  Tertullian  says  "For  by  an 
image  we  die  in  baptism;  but  we  truly  rise  in 
the  flesh,  as  did  also  Christ."  Many  of  the  early 
baptisteries  were  in  the  shape  of  sarcophagi,  or 
octagonal,  in  reference  to  the  number  8,  the  sym- 
bol of  resurrection.  "  Remove  the  resurrection," 
says  Fairbairn  substantially,  "and  the  Lord's  Bay, 
the  Supper,  and  Baptism  would  be  inexplicable."  ^ 
Observe  the  force  of  these  statements.  The 
"  application  of  water,"  as  significant  of  cleans- 
ing, would  have  introduced  no  new  idea,  nor 
demanded  any  new  fact  to  explain  its  origin.  It 
was  the  familiar  and  immemorial  symbol  both 
of  Jews  and  heathen.     But  it  was  far  otherwise 

^Studies  in  Life  of  Christ  (N.  Y.,  1882),  p.  359.     Cf . 
also  Westcott,  Gospel  of  the  Resurrection^  p.  128. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  51 

if  the  idea  portrayed  were  one  so  novel  and 
startling  as  that  of  a  Messianic  resurrection  from 
the  dead. 

The  superior  evidential  value  of  a  rite  is  not 
always  recognized.  It  is  an  acUd  faith,  con- 
spicuous, unequivocal.  It  was  vain,  said  Paul, 
for  Peter  to  preaxih  the  equality  of  the  Gentiles 
while  he  would  not  eat  with  tliem.  Peter,  on 
the  day  of  Pentecost,  having  set  forth  the  pro- 
phecy and  the  correspondent  fact  of  Christ's 
resurrection,  demanded  not  only  a  verbal  assent, 
but  a  baptism  in  the  "likeness"  of  that  resurrec- 
tion, as  a  visible  avowal  of  their  faith  in  it. 
'*  Belief  expressed  in  action,"  says  Canon  West- 
cott,  "is  for  ihQ  most  part  the  strongest  evidence 
one  can  have  of  any  historic  event."  How  tre- 
mendous therefore  is  the  significance  of  the  fact 
that  on  that  day,  less  than  two  months  after  the 
alleged  transaction,  in  the  very  city  where  it  was 
said  to  have  taken  place  and  where  the  evidence 
could  best  be  sifted,  three  thousand  people  by  a 
public  and  unequivocal  symbolic  act  "  set  to  their 
seal "  that  the  resurrection  had  really  occurred ; 
and  thereby  not  only  boldly  challenged  all  skep- 
ticism, but  irrevocably  announced  their  separa- 
tion from  all  the  old  ties  of  friendship  and  faith. 
If  the  value  of  testimony  depend  on  its  having 
been    contemporaneous,  contiguous,  from  many 


52  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

witnesses,  unequivocally  expressed,  and  impartial, 
or  against  interest,  then  may  that  be  more  truly 
said  of  the  resurrection  as  evidenced  in  baptism, 
which  has  been  said  of  the  crucifixion  as  con- 
firmed by  the  Lord's  Supper,  viz.:  "0/"  no  other 
event  in  the  history  of  man  have  we  an  equal 
guarantee  of  the  historic  truth  of  the  facts/'  ^ 

The  immense  damage  done  to  Christianity  by 
the  obliteration  of  the  original  features  of  bap- 
tism is  manifest  in  the  fact  that  it  has  not  only, 
where  so  changed,  lost  all  present  witnessing 
power,  but  that  it  has  led  men,  as  we  have  seen, 
to  deny  that  it  ever  had  such  power;  and  so  to 
seek  to  invalidate  the  earliest  and  most  authori- 
tative testimony  to  the  most  vital  fact  in  Chris- 
tian history.  The  conservative  power  of  a  care- 
fully preserved  rite  is  enormous.  "It  serves," 
in  the  language  of  Sir  George  Cornewall  Lewis, 
"to  stereotype  an  oral  tradition,  and  preserve  it 
from  the  license  of  imagination  or  the  distor- 
tions of  forgetfulness."  Like  the  arrowhead 
inscriptions  of  Babylon,  and  the  hieroglyphics  of 
Egypt,  its  definite  message  is  cut  into  the  visible 
life  of  men,  as  theirs  is  cut  in  stone,  and  remains 
like  them,  changeless  amid  the  changing. 

It  remains  to  speak  of  baptism  as  meant  to 
bear  witness,  2.   Of  the  primary  and  jyreemineni 

^  Cf  Westcott,  Gospel  of  the  Resurrection,  p.  133. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE,  63 

place  of  the  resuirecticm  in  the  Christian  system. 
The  Acts  significantly  precede  the  Epistles. 
The  announcement  of  the  fact  of  the  resurrec- 
tion, and  the  possibility  of  salvation,  historically 
preceded  tlie  unfolding  of  the  tJieory  of  the 
atonement  and  the  method  of  salvation  logically 
involved  therein.  Baptism,  correspondingly,  the 
first  appointed  act  of  the  believer,  was  a  joyful 
acceptance  of  the  fact  preached  with  all  its  yet 
unrevealed  implications.  The  early  catacombs 
had  no  crucifix  or  sorrowful  inscriptions,  but 
many-blended  and  cheerful  symbols  of  baptism 
and  the  resurrection.  To-day  we  find  the 
Eucharist  jealously  guarded  (having  been  by 
the  Council  of  Trent  declared  "above  all  other 
sacraments,"  because  while  they  may  sanctify, 
"in  this  is  the  Author  himself  of  sanctity'^)  while 
baptism  is  made  the  toy  of  ecclesiasticism  and 
"convenience."  By  a  precise  parallelism  we 
find  Rome  occupying  the  whole  horizon  with 
her  realistic  and  purposely  painful  visions  of 
the  suffering  or  dead  Christ;  and  Protestantism 
giving  fifty-one  weeks  in  the  year  to  philosoph- 
izing about  the  atonement,  and  Easter  Sunday 
only  to  the  definite  and  emphatic  proclamation 
of  the  atonement  itself,  as  a  fact  completed  and 
made  real  to  us  by  the  resurrection  of  Christ. 
There  is   no  room  here   for   a   detailed   review 


54  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

of  the  steps  by  which  this  result  has  been 
reached.  Suffice  it  to  say  that  the  gradual 
ignoring  of  the  primary  function  of  baptism  as 
a  witness  entailed  a  parallel  subsidence  from 
view  of  the  fact  to  which  it  witnessed.  Priestly 
incantations  and  scholastic  subtleties  crowded  the 
foreground,  and  the  risen  Christ  slowly  faded 
into  the  distance,  where  he  seems  to  the  be- 
wildered masses  still  to  hang  on  the  cross,  sad, 
severe,  and  inaccessible. 

Finally,  and  only  by  way  of  hint,  we  must 
consider  a  subject  most  momentous  in  our  time: 
the  value  of  the  definite  and  inflexible  form  of 
baptism  as  a  witness,  3.  Of  the  corporeal  actu- 
ality of  Christ's  resurrection.  The  idea  of 
immortality  was  common  to  all  men,  but  that 
of  a  bodily  resurrection  was  mocked  as  absurd 
by  the  Athenians,  or  refined  into  a  metaphor  as 
in  its  literal  form  too  gross  by  the  Gnostics 
[Knowers).  Curiously,  the  Gnostics  of  that  day 
and  the  Agnostics  of  this  are  closely  akin :  and 
the  spreading  eaves  of  their  roof  shelter  thou- 
sands between,  who,  through  various  degrees  of 
real  though  perhaps  unsuspected  consanguinity, 
are  bound  up  with  them  in  a  common  thought. 
Among  these  are  the  Mystics,  Quakers,  Sweden- 
borgians,  Transcendentalists,  and  a  large  part  of 
that   school  who  worship   the  Aurora   Borealis 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  55 

under  the  name  of  Liberalism.  To  them  the 
primal  curse  is  subjection  of  the  idea  to  formal 
expression.  The  formal  church,  the  formal  rite, 
the  formal  Scripture,  formal  knowledge,  and 
even  formal  existence,  are  vulgar,  and  must  be 
volatilized.  Listen  to  Matthew  Arnold's  ren- 
dering of  the  plain  Gospel  narrative:  "To  the 
mind  of  Jesus,  his  own  resurrection  after  a  short 
sojourn  in  the  grave  was  the  victoi^y  of  his  cause 
after  his  death,  and  at  the  price  of  his  death. 
His  disciples  materialized  his  resurrection,  and 
their  version  of  the  matter  falls  day  by  day  to 
ruin.''  He  "lived  in  the  eternal  order,  and  the 
eternal  order  neve)"  dies.''  This,  he  argues,  is  our 
only  possible  immortality. 

Now  the  noticeable  fact  is  that  over  against  all 
theories  falsely  calling  themselves  "spiritual," 
because  they  rejected  "form"  in  his  day,  the 
Apostle  set  the  statement  that  Christianity  is 
primarily  and  characteristically  a  historic  religion 
— resting  on  the  concrete  manifestation  of  Christ 
"  in  the  flesh,"  and  his  formal  and  sensible  resur- 
rection— and  bodying  forth  in  vivid  and  graphic 
outline,  in  the  permanent  rite  he  had  ordained, 
the  literalness  of  that  resurrection.  It  is  not  sur- 
prising to  find  among  most  of  the  Gnostic  sects, 
as  among  modern  "Liberals,"  indifference  to,  or 
aversion  for,  tlie  formal,  alike  in  baptism  and  in 


5C  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTMIJVE, 

resurrection.  Nor  can  it  surprise  us  much  more 
if  the  habitual  blurring  of  the  ordained  outline 
of  the  one,  to  make  it  more  "spiritual/'  should 
everywhere  tend  to  melt  the  revealed  outline  of 
the  other  into  a  mere  gauzy  metaphor.  But  if  it 
be  a  metaphor,  says  Paul,  the  dead  "are  per- 
ished'' and  "ye  are  yet  in  your  sins." 


CHAPTER  ly. 

BAPTISM  AND   THE  NEW  BIRTH.^MODEJlN 
THEORIES. 


N 


O  department  of  religious  literature  would 
^       probably  yield  an  anthology  so  rare  in  its 
variety,  and  so  marvellously  delicate  in  its  shad- 
ings, as  the  discussion  of  the  relations  of  Bap- 
tism and  Regeneration.     Its  range  is  so  wide,  its 
relations  so  complex,  its   bulk   so  voluminous, 
that  it  would  be  impossible  to  compress  into  an 
essay  like  this  a  statement  of  it  which  should  do 
justice  to  every  local  or   individual   phase   of 
opinion.   Nothing  is  aimed  at  but  a  compendious 
statement,  which   it   is   hoped   may   escape  the 
suspicion  of  at  least  intentional  unfairness  either 
as  to  accuracy  or  proportion. 

There  are  two  great  questions  involved. 

THE  FIRST  GREAT  QUESTION. 

1.  Does  baptism  itsdf  regenerate  f 

This  question  brings  to  the  stand  at  once  all 
advocates  of  infant  baptism  to  explain  a  custom 
which,  if  it  do   not  imply  regeneration   inde- 

'  57 


58  TEE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE, 

pendent  of  faith,  very  much  needs  explanation. 
Fairly  representative  of  the  divers  responses  are 
{a)  The  Theory  of  Rome,  This  seems  to  be 
unequivocal.  The  Council  of  Trent  declared 
that  "  in  baptism,  not  only  remission  of  original 
sin  was  given,  but  also  all  which  properly  has  the 
nature  of  sin  is  cut  off."  It  makes  one  "a 
Christian,  a  child  of  God,  and  an  heir  of  heaven." 
As  to  faith,  Cardinal  Wiseman  says,  "The 
Church  teaches  that  it  is  a  virtue  essentially  in- 
fused of  God  in  baptism ;  and  such  must  be  more 
or  less  the  belief  of  every  Church  that  adopts  the 
practice  of  infant  baptism."  ^  The  whole  efficacy 
of  baptism,  however,  is  made  to  depend  on  the 
intent  of  the  administrator.  The  doctrine  of 
Rome,  therefore,  renders  only  one  thing  certain, 
viz. :  the  perdition  of  the  unbaptized.  It  leaves 
'the  salvation  of  the  baptized  both  uncertain  and 
incomplete,  for  it  depends  for  its  validity  on  the 
secret  "intent"  of  the  administrator,  and  for  its 
consummation,  even  in  the  holiest  person,  on  mass 
and  penancje  here  and  purgatory  hereafter.  Rome 
therefore  teaches  that  cleansing  grace,  the  counter- 
part of  sanctification,  is  wrought  in  baptism,  but 
not  regeneration,  the  counterpart  of  justification; 

^Lectures   on  Doctrine   and    Practice    of    Roman 
Catholic  Chu-ch  (Baltimore,  1862),  p.  74. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  69 

neither  of  which  latter  ideas  has  a  place  in  her 
theology. 

(6)  Luther^s  Theory.  Luther  launched  the 
Reformation  from  the  Koman  stocks  with  a 
single  lever;  the  doctrine  of  "justification  by 
faith  alone."  "Faith,"  he  says,  "must  appro- 
priate the  divine;  all  other  things  can  be  only 
signs  for  the  operation  and  formation  of  faith."  ^ 
The  heavenly  talisman  was  thus  at  once  trans- 
ferred from  the  covetous  and  despotic  hand  of 
the  priest  to  the  heart  of  the  believer :  for  the 
sacraments,  which  had  been  reckoned  the  "Keys 
of  Heaven,"  could  no  longer  shut  up  that  king- 
dom which  Christ  had  set  "open  to  all  believers." 

Protestantism,  which  repudiated  the  authority 
of  tradition,  and  rested  the  validity  of  every- 
thing in  the  Christian  life  on  faith,  inherited 
therefore  a  Trojan  horse  in  infant  baptism. 
"The  Zwickau  enthusiasts,"  says  Neander,^ 
"who  came  to  Wittenburg  in  A.  D.  1522,  were 
zealous  opponents  of  infant  baptism ;  they  raised 
a  controversy  upon  it,  and  placed  the  Witten- 
bergers  in  a  state  of  embarrassment.  Mel- 
ancthon,  in  writing  to  the  Elector,  declared  that 
"Satan   had   attacked   them    in    a   weak   place, 

1  Neander,  History  of  Christian  Dogmas  (Bohn,  1868), 
vol.  II.,  p.  688. 
2/6.,  vol.  II.,  p.  692. 


60  THE  MOULD   OF  DOCTRINE. 

for  he  knew  not  how  he  should  refute  these 
enthusiasts." 

But  principles  outrun  practice,  as  the  clouds 
fly  swifter  than  the  ships  in  the  heavier  sea 
below.  There  is  scarcely  a  better  illustration 
of  the  conservative  power  of  established  custom 
than  in  the  tergiversations  to  which  it  brought  a 
man  so  candid  and  strong  as  Luther,  in  his 
efforts  to  defend  the  retention  of  an  old  practice, 
directly  contradictory  of  the  very  principle  he 
was  at  the  time  trying  to  establish.  Infant 
baptism  is  not  taught  in  Scripture,  he  said,  but 
neither  can  it  be  proved  to  be  against  Scripture. 
Baptism  of  course  presupposes  faith,  he  admit- 
ted, but  "who  can  tell  whether  God  does  not 
implant  faith  in  early  childhood  as  in  sleep?" 
Faith,  he  further  urged,  is  negative;  infants 
therefore  do  have  faith,  because  they  do  not 
resist  the  truth.  "He  knew  how  to  relieve 
himself,"  says  Neander,  "though  he  put  down 
objections  more  by  bold  Assertions  than  by  ar- 
guments." ^ 

The  Augsburg  Confession  therefore  distinctly 

reads,  "concerning   baptism,  they  teach  that  it 

is  necessary  to  salvation   .   .   .  and  condemn  the 

Anabaptists  who  hold  .  .  .  that  infants  can  be 

saved  without  it."  ^     Luther  himself  wrote  that 

^  Neander,  Hist,  of  Chris.  Dogmas,  vol.  II.,  p. 
2  Ihid,  p.  693. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  61 

"baptism  is  the  bath  of  regeneration,  because  in 
it  we  are  born  again/'  Practically,  therefore,  he 
only  substituted  sacramental  for  sacerdotal  grace 
— transferring  the  shaping  of  eternal  destiny 
from  the  inward  whim  of  the  priest  to  the  out- 
ward whim  of  the  parent  or  friend.  For  the 
sake  of  rescuing  those  little  ones,  whom  Christ 
had  appointed  to  the  "kingdom  of  heaven,''  out 
of  the  "  limbo  deep  and  broad "  which  God  had 
"prepared  for  the  devil  and  his  angels,"  but 
which  "the  Fathers"  had  appropriated  to  un- 
baptized  children,  he  sacrificed  the  broad  prin- 
ciple of  the  Reformation  at  the  shrine  of  a 
narrow  and  cruel  tradition. 

(c)  Calvin^ s  Theory.  "It  is  to  be  no  means 
easy,"  says  Bishop  Browne,^  "to  define  his  doc- 
trine of  baptism.  Inconsistency  is  very  little  his 
character;  yet  on  baptism  he  seems  to  have  been 
somewhat  inconsistent  with  himself."  To  Calvin 
the  one  overwhelming  and  only  creative  fact  in 
the  universe  was  the  definite,  prevenient  purpose 
of  God.  To  conceive  of  the  eternal  fiat  of  that 
sovereign  will  as  in  any  way  dependent  for  its 
completion  or  change  on  the  temporal  accident 
of  sacrament  or  personal  intent,  seemed  to  him 
as  absurd  as  to  expect  the  flame  to  be  mastered 
by  the  moth  that  is  shrivelled  in  it.     Baptism 

1  On  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  (London,  1865),  p.  651. 


62  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

cannot,  therefore,  make  one  a  Christian,  but  only 
declare  the  elect  to  be  so  (to  whom  alone  the 
ordinance  belongs).  Bat  since  the  purpose  of 
God  is  secret,  how  are  the  truly  elect  to  be  ascer- 
tained? This  is  not  so  difficult  in  the  case  of 
adults,  plain  tests  being  supplied  in  Scripture 
(see  1  Thess.  1 :  4,  5;  1  Peter  1 :  2).  But  "elect 
infants'^  are  not  to  be  so  discerned.  To  escape  a 
dilemma,  therefore,  Calvin,  revolting  alike  at 
Home's  sacerdotal  and  Luther's  sacramental,  fled 
to  hereditary  grace.  He  decided  that  the  Chris- 
tian church  was  not  a  '^  new  birth  "  from,  but  a 
prolongation  of,  the  Jewish.  Diifering  from 
Paul,  who  thought  the  Abrahamic  with  the  old 
covenants  "pertained  to  his  kinsmen  according 
to  the  flesh,"  he  concluded  that  the  measure  and 
margin  of  electing  grace  are  still  plainly  trace- 
able along  the  outline  of  genealogical  descent. 
"The  children,"^  says  Dr.  John  Hall,  "are  born 
into  the  church.  .  .  It  is  a  mediaeval  superstition 
that  represents  the  child  as  ^christened,'  or  made 
a  Christian  in  the  rite."  "Our  Confession  of 
Faith,"  says  the  Presbyterian  Assembly's  Digest, 
"recognizes  the  right  of  baptism  of  the  infant 
children  only  of  such  parents  as  are  members 
of  the  church."^      To  these  were  added,  under 

»  Questions  of  the  Day,  (New  York,  1873),  p.  263. 
2  (Ed.,  Philadelphia,  1855),  p.  106. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  63 

exigency,  still  after  the  Abrahamic  idea,  the 
"infant  slaves  of  Christian  Mastei-s.'^  ^ 

But  now  again  the  "Trojan  horse''  disgorges 
discord  within  the  Genevan  ramparts.  If  elec- 
tion is  already  determined  by  birth,  and  the 
salvation  of  the  elect  assured  by  immutable 
decree,  baptism  cannot  add  to  the  certainty  of  the 
one  or  the  security  of  the  other.  The  "elect 
infant"  will  be  saved  without  baptism:  the  non- 
elect  cannot  be  helped  by  it.  If  baptism  do  not 
"convey''  as  well  as  affirm  grace,  it  is  nugatory, 
and  its  omission  involves  neither  peril  nor  sin. 
Moreover,  since  the  elect  cannot  apostatize,  there 
is  serious  peril  in  positively  and  solemnly  desig- 
nating as  "children  of  God"  those  who  may 
after\N^ard  give  every  indication  of  being  "chil- 
dren of  the  Devil "  rather.^ 

Since  Calvin  thought  with  the  other  Reformers, 
however,  that  (in  the  language  of  the  English 
Church)  infant  baptism  was  "in  any  wise  to  be 
retained,"  he  boldly  made  a  place  for  it  by 
knocking  out  the  corner-stone  of  his  entire 
system.  For  in  his  Gatechi^i  for  the  Genevan 
children  he  taught  it  to  be  "certain  that  pardon 
of  sins  and  newness  of  life  is  offered  to  us  in 

1  Presbyterian  Assembly's  Digest,  p.  107. 

2Cf.  Bossuet,  Variations  (Dublin,  1829),  vol.  1. 
p.  360. 


64  TUE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

baptism."  '^We  must  take  heed  not  to  tie  Gocl\s 
grace  to  the  sacraments ; "  he  writes  again  in  his 
Coimnentary  on  the  Acts,  "  for  the  administmtion 
of  baptism  profits  nothing  except  where  God 
thinks  fit.  "  The  efficacy  of  baptism/'  according 
to  the  Westminster  Confession,  ^4s  not  tied  to 
that  moment  of  time  wherein  it  is  administered ; 
yet,  notwithstanding,  by  the  right  use  of  this 
ordinance  the  grace  promised  is  not  only  offered 
but  really  exhibited  and  conferred  by  the  Holy 
Ghost  to  such  (whether  of  age  or  infants)  as 
that  grace  belongeth  unto,  according  to  the 
counsel  of  God's  own  will  in  his  appointed 
time."  ^  The  Presbyterian  doctrine,  as  Dr.  Charles 
Hodge,  of  Princeton,  says,  is  midway  between 
Rome  and  Zwingle  in  this :  that  baptism  always, 
the  other  that  it  never,  conveys  grace.  Presby- 
terians hold  only  that  it  "does  not  uniformly  or 
always  at  the  time  do  so."  Since  "regeneration" 
is  expressly  mentioned  (in  Ch.  28,  Art.  1  of  the 
Confession)  as  included  in  the  "  grace  promised," 
and  therefore  "  really  exhibited  and  conferred  "  in 
baptism,  it  is  plainly  taught  that  baptism  does 
regenerate,  only  not  exclusively,  always,  nor 
instantly.^ 

How  narrow  a  rim  of  hope  is  thus  left  even 

1  Schaff,  Creeds  of  Christendom  (London),  vol.  III., 
p.  663.        2  lb.,  vol.  III.,  p. . 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRIJSE.  65 

to  Calvin's  elect  infant  world,  to  sav  nothing:  of 
the  awful  shadow  left  on  those  who  lie  outside 
the  circuit  of  the  ^^  birth  covenant/'  For  be- 
lievers' children  also,  as  it  seems,  may  die  un- 
regenerate,  being  unbaptized;  and  the  like  may 
happen  even  after  baptism,  if  grace  be  delayed 
or  fail  to  be  given  therein.  Now,  since  the  un- 
regenerate  cannot  "see  the  kingdom  of  God,"  it 
follows  either  that  the  elect  may  perish  after  all, 
or  that  believers'  children  do  not  certainly  com- 
pose the  elect,  and  ought  not  to  monopolize  the 
rite  of  baptism.  Either  of  these  propositions 
admitted  is  fatal  to  Calvin's  theory  of  grace; 
either  of  them  denied  is  fatal  to  his  theory  of 
baptism. 

(d)  Zwingys  Theory.  Zwingle  alone,  of  the 
three  great  leaders  of  the  Reformation,  con- 
sistently and  at  every  point  repudiated  the 
saving  efficacy  of  rites  in  themselves.  "If  the 
sacraments  were  the  things  they  signified,"  he 
argued,  "then  they  could  not  be  signs.  For 
the  sign  and  the  thing  signified  cannot  be  the 
same."  "External  baptism  with  water  con- 
tributes nothing  to  the  washing  away  of  sin." 
"Original  sin,"  he  strangely  added,  however, 
"does  not  deserve  damnation  if  a  person  has 
believing  parents."^     And  still  more  strangely, 

^  Browne  on  Tliirty-Nine  Articles,  p.  657. 
E 


6G  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

maintaining  that  the  ^^hing  signified"  in  bap- 
tism was  a  pledge  "to  be  a  hearer  and  disciple 
of  God,  and  to  obey  his  laws,"  he  held  that  ft  jeh 
a  pledge  might  be  fitly  administered  to  infants. 

{c)  Current  Theories.  Of  these  four  theories, 
the  Romish,  or  sacerdotal,  lies  at  the  foundation 
of  the  English  Church,  filtering  down  thence 
through  the  Methodist;  the  Lutheran,  or  sacra- 
mental, largely  pervades  the  Continental 
churches;  the  Calvinistic,  or  hereditary,  has 
shaped  the  Scotch  and  other  Presbyterian 
churches;  and  the  Zwinglian,  or  dedicatory, 
though  not  distinctly  avowed,  has  deeply  im- 
pressed the  history  of  Congregationalism. 

The  English  Articles  of  1536  were  undis- 
guisedly  Romish.^  They  endorsed  penance,  con- 
fession, purgatory^  image-worship,  and  other 
superstitions.  They  plainly  declared  baptism 
"a  thing  necessary  for  the  attaining  of  ever- 
lasting life,"  "insomuch  as  that  infants  and 
children  dying  in  their  infancy  shall  undoubtedly 
be  saved  thereby,  and  otherwise  not."  Sub- 
sequent revisions  show  the  traces  of  Lutheran 
and  Calvinistic  pressure,  the  latter  being  espe- 
cially anti-sacerdotal  and  democratic  as  embodied 
in  Puritanism.  The  Thirty-Nine  Articles  as 
finally   revised    still    describe    the    baptized    as 

*Hardwick,  History  of  Thirty-Nine  A  'tides,  p.  50. 


THE  MOULD   OF  DOCTRINE.  67 

"christened,"  and  baptism  as  '^a  sign  of  re- 
generation, or  the  new  birth,  whereby  as  by  an 
instrument  they  that  receive  it  rightly  are  grafted 
into  the  Church;"  and  the  Catechism  charac- 
terizes it  as  a  proceeding  whereby  the  baptized 
is  "made  a  member  of  Christ,  the  child  of  God, 
and  an  inheritor  of  the  kingdom  of  heaven" — 
words  varied  only  trivially  in  form  and  not  at 
all  in  sense  from  the  Romish  formula  from 
Avhich  they  came.  The  diversity  of  strata  in 
her  growing  formularies  and  literature  give  pre- 
text enough  for  the  multiplication  of  theoretic 
conflicts  in  the  English  Church,  and  point 
enough  to  the  not  quite  accurate  quip  of  Lord 
Chatham  that  she  has  "Calvinistic  Articles,  a 
Papistical  service,  and  an  Arminian  clergy." 

The  Methodist  Articles  were  based  on  those 
of  the  English  Church,  since  often  revised  in 
minor  points.  Concerning  them  John  Wesley 
wrote,  "  It  is  certain  our  Church  supposes  that 
all  who  are  baptized  in  their  infancy  are  at  the 
same  time  born  again :  and  it  is  allowed  that  the 
w^hole  office  for  the  baptism  of  infants  proceeds 
on  this  supposition."^  \yatson,  a  standard  au- 
thority in  Methodism,  says  of  infant  baptism,  "  It 
secures,  too,  the  gifts  of  the  Holy  Spirit  in  those 
secret   spiritual  influences   by  which  the  actual 

*  Sermons  (London,  1872),  vol.  II.  (sermon  45),  p.  74. 


68  2  BE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE, 

regeneration  of  those  infants  vrho  die  in  infancy 
is  effected."  This,  says  the  venerable  Dr.  Curry, 
in  a  recent  article,  more  fully  to  be  referred  to  a 
few  pages  farther  on,  was  the  doctrine  of  the 
earliest  American  Methodist  ministers,  to  which, 
modified  somewhat  in  expression  (it  may  be 
fairly  inferred  from  his  language),  he  still  holds. 

Presbyterianism  does  not  seem  to  recede  from 
the  Westminster  platform.  Dr.  John  Hall  says, 
"the  only  reason  why  the  baptized  child  does 
not  sit  at  the  Lord's  Table,  of  course,  is  the 
counterpart  of  the  restraint  on  the  vote  of  the 
American  youth."  ^ 

Congregationalism,  notwithstanding  the  con- 
genital affinity  of  the  Savoy  with  the  Westmin- 
ster Articles,  and  its  high-church  developments 
in  New  England  history,  shows  strong  tenden- 
cies toward  reaction  against  the  Calvinistic  in- 
terpretation of  infant  baptism,  and  even  against 
the  continuance  of  the  practice  itself.  Dr.  R. 
W.  Dale,  in  a  volume  not  long  since  published, 
protested  that  "  no  one  can  become  a  member  of 
a  Congregational  church  by  birth,"  supplement- 
ing the  statement  by  a  vigorous  and  destructive 
criticism  of  the  whole  birthright  theory.^ 

Nothing  is  more  curious  to  observe,  in  review- 

^  Qaestiovs  of  the  Day,  p.  263. 

2  Ecclesia  (Second  Series,  London,  1871),  p.  371. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  r,9 

ing  tliis  subject,  than  the  fertility  of  ingenuity 
displayed  in  saving  the  Scriptural  doctrine  of 
salvation  by  faith  alone  from  the  manifest  affront 
put  on  it  by  the  administration  of  baptism  where 
faith  is  impossible.  This  is  attempted  in  every 
case  by  an  intruded  fiction.  The  transaction 
does  rest  on  faith,  says  Rome — the  faith  of  the 
Church ;  not  so,  says  the  English  Church,  but 
on  the  faith  of  the  sponsor :  not  so,  says  Calvin, 
but  on  the  faith  of  the  parents:  not  so,  says 
Luther,  but  on  the  unconscious  faith  of  the  child 
itself.  If  these  devices  sucxjeed  in  justifying  the 
practice,  it  will  be  only  because  "  faith  is  made 
void." 

THE   SECOND   GREAT   QUESTION. 

2.  Does  Baptism  symbolize  Regeneration  f 
The  British  Conference  of  \yesleyan  Metho- 
dists has,  during  the  present  year,  after  a  seven 
years'  controversy,  so  modified  its  formulary  as 
(in  the  opinion  of  the  London  Quarterly  Revieiv,^ 
the  able  organ  of  that  body),  to  decide  "that  the 
Lord  has  not  in  the  couree  of  his  ministry  con- 
nected regeneration  with  baptism  in  any  way.'* 
This  event  affords  an  apt  illustration  of  the 
working  of  the  very  principle  which  these  arti- 
cles are  designed  to  illustrate — viz. :  the  power 
of  symbolic  rites  as  moulds  of  doctrine:  un- 
i  October  Number,  1882,  p.  146. 


70  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

broken,  they  hold  the  outline  of  opinion  secure; 
broken,  they  refashion  plastic  opinion  to  thei  • 
own  altered  form,  and  silently  but  steadily  seek 
to  reduce  to  the  same  conformity  the  harder  lines 
of  formulated  statement. 

Baptism,  administered  without  preliminary 
faith  in  the  recipient,  by  its  symbolic  form 
compels  some  theory  of  regeneration  without 
faith,  and  ultimately  a  reconstruction  of  the 
whole  statement  of  the  ground  of  salvation. 
Baptism,  so  altered  in  form  as  no  longer  to 
symbolize  regeneration,  but  "purification"  in- 
stead, tends  rapidly  to  iBubstitute  the  idea  of 
"purification'^  for  that  of  regeneration  in  the 
scheme  of  doctrine,  and  to  revolutionize  creed 
statements   accordingly. 

Students  of  doctrinal  history  will  not  have 
been  unobservant  of  a  steadily  growing  aversion 
for  the  term  "baptismal  regeneration,"  and  the 
equally  steady  growth  of  emphasis  on  "bap- 
tismal grace"  as  a  substitute  therefor.  Dr. 
Hodge  in  his  Theology,  devotes  a  long  section  to 
the  battering  down  oi'  the  one  and  the  exaltation 
of  the  other.^  Episcopal  writers  betray  a  keen 
scent  in  the  same  direction.^     Dr.  Curry,  in  the 

iVol.  III,p.  591,se^. 

2  See  American  Quarterly  Cliurch  RevteiVy  vol. 
XXIV.,  p.]  22,  se^. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  71 

remarkable  article  before  referred  to  (in  The 
Independent  of  Nov.  2,  1882),  repudiates  the 
doctrine  of  baptismal  regeneration,  out  of  which 
he  says  infant  baptism  was  "developed,"  but 
still  insists  that  the  "sacraments  of  the  Church 
ordained  by  Christ"  (by  evolution,  as  it  appears) 
"are  not  simply  ceremonies:  but  rather  that  they 
are  really  effective  through  the  spiritual  grace 
that  accompanies  them."  The  able  writer  in  the 
London  Quai'tedy  above  cited,  also  insists  that 
"no  harm  can  come  from  a  Scriptural  and 
guarded  maintenance  of  baptismal  grace."  The 
"question  as  to  the  specific  grace  baptism  pledges 
and  conv^eys  to  the  children  of  the  Christian 
covenant  finds  little  direct  solution  in  Scripture, 
but  mucli  indirect  illustration."  It  is  not,  how- 
ever, "regeneration,"  he  is  sure,  for  the  "new 
birth"  is  the  "full  development  of  the  germinal 
seed"  planted  in  baptism. 

Precisely  parallel  to  the  growth  of  the  theory 
that  baptism  conveys  grace  only  and  not  regener- 
ation, is  that  of  the  theory  that  baptism  means 
purification  only  and  not  regeneration;  and 
preliminary  to  both  was  that  change  in  the  form 
of  the  ordinance  which  reduced  it  from  a  vivid 
memorial  of  Christ's  historic  resurrection  and  the 
symbol  of  the  believer's  correspondent  spiritual 
passage  "through  death  to  life,"  to  a  mere  "wash- 


72  THE   MOrin    OF  DOC  THINE, 

ing  with   water/'  laying   sole   emphasis   on   the 
"putting  away  the  filth  of  the  flesh''  thereby. 

Concerning  all  this,  it  is  obvious  to  remark 
that  as  Christ  once  only  rose  from  the  dead  and 
men  once  only  are  regenerated,  so  baptism,  fitly 
complementing  the  analogy,  is  once  only  to  be 
administered.  But  if  grace  is  conferred  only  by 
baptism,  and  when  so  conferred  is  but  incipient ;  if 
baptism  symbolize  "washing"  only, which  is  from 
its  very  nature  incomplete, — then  either  "grace" 
must  forever  stop  short  of  "regeneration"  and 
imperfect  sanctification  forever  preclude  perfect 
justification,  or  baptism  must  be  often  repeated 
until  the  measure  of  grace  and  holiness  be  full. 
They  are  the  true  Anabaptists  who  divide  the  one 
baptism  into  two,  entailing  a  separate  ritual  and 
theory  for  each;  or  so  mutilate  the  one  baptism 
that,  once  administered,  it  teaches  incompleteness, 
and  suggests  some  further  step  to  reach  the  actual 
ne\A'  life. 


CHAPTER  V. 

BAPTISM  AND  THE  NEW  BIRTH.— THE 
APOSTOLIC  IDEA. 

IT  is  a  noticeable  circumstance  that  Paul's 
Epistle  addressed  to  the  Romans,  busies 
itself  chiefly  with  the  Jews,  and  when  it  men- 
tions the  Gentile  world  invariably  cites  the 
Greek  rather  than  the  Roman  as  representative 
of  it.  Not  less  remarkable  is  its  texture.  Its 
material  is  borrowed  mainly  from  the  Jewish 
Scriptures;  its  method  from  the  Greek  dialecti- 
cians; while  its  vocabulary  is  derived  from,  and 
its  whole  spirit  is  redolent  of,  Roman  law.  We 
are  reminded  at  once  how,  in  the  w^orld^s  metrop- 
olis, Roman,  Greek,  and  Jew  were  then  dwelling 
together,  equally  arrogant  and  mutually  dis- 
dainful, but  together  were  hanging  over  the 
world  their  tri-color  of  prerogative,  against  the 
outer  barbarian  who  was  neither  a  citizen  of  the 
Empire,  a  disciple  of  the  school,  nor  a  child  of 
Abraham. 

Paul  was  himself  a  Roman  freeman,  a  Greek 
scholar,  and  a  Hebrew  of  pure  blood.      But  he 

73 


74  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

had  heard  a  voice,  like  the  blast  beside  Jericho, 
before  which  the  triple  walls  of  his  citadel  of 
privilege  had  fallen  flat.  It  was  the  same  word 
that* had  startled  Nicodemiis,  assuring  him  that 
he  too,  who  of  all  men  fan.'ied  himself  peculiarly 
well-born,  must  equally  with  the  Gentile  "dog" 
''be  born  again.'^  With  peculiar  authority, 
therefore,  he  assails  the  entrenchments  wliich  he 
himself  has  found  insecure.  To  the  Roman,  he 
substantially  says,  "Your  law  cannot  really 
'justify;'  and  it  is  a  small  thing  to  be  on  the 
right  side  of  Roman  law,  yet  on  the  wrong  side 
of  God's  law."  To  the  Greek,  "Your  knowl- 
edge cannot  save ;  a  man  may  know,  '  but  how 
to  perform  that  which  is  good,  find  not.' "  To 
the  Jew,  "Your  birth  is  of  no  avail;  high 
birth  is  neither  preventive  nor  cure  of  low  life." 
Jew,  Roman,  and  Greek  stand,  therefore,  equally 
with  the  base-born,  nomadic,  and  illiterate  barba- 
rian, shelterless  before  God's  law:  for  "there  is 
no  difference." 

There  is  a  special  significance  in  the  addressing 
to  the  Roman  of  an  argument  from  the  Jewish 
standpoint,  for  it  implies  a  certain  community  of 
ideas,  without  which  it  would  be  unintelligible. 
That  such  a  community  in  fact  existed  is  implied 
in  the  apparition  of  Judseo-Roman  elements  in 
subsequent  church  history.    The  Pope  still  wears 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOGTBINE.  76 

the  imperial  crown  and  the  title  of  Pontifex 
Maximus  borrowed  from  pagan  Rome,  but  with 
these  assumes  the  robes  and  functions  of  the 
Jewish  Higli-Priest.  Cardinal  Newman,  in  his 
sermons,  argues  that  the  Church  is  an  imperial 
power,  prolonging  also  the  Jewish  regime,  Lu- 
ther found  ^'new  wine,"  indeed,  but  borrowed 
from  Rome  her  "old  bottles"  to  put  it  in,  and  so 
Judaized  the  Reformation.  The  Genevan  system 
derived  its  inspiration,  by  way  of  Calvin  through 
Augustine,  from  the  Latin  Theology  of  North 
Africa:  and  it  culminated  in  an  attempted  rees- 
tablishment  of  the  Old  Testament  Theocracy  in 
the  New  Testament  era. 

The  historic  consilience  of  these  two  lines  of 
influence  in  the  systems  named,  and  the  uni- 
formly coincident  occurrence  of  one  of  the 
theories  of  privilege  above  mentioned  (the  sacer- 
dotal or  corporate,  the  hereditary,  or  the  sacra- 
mental), suggest  something  deeper  than  a  mere 
casual  connection.  Perhaps  the  battering-ram, 
ostensibly  aimed  by  the  Apostle  at  the  distinctly- 
named  Jewish  bastions  of  prerogative,  but  meant 
really  for  the  scarcely-named  Roman,  may,  if 
given  full  swing,  prove  equally  destructive  to  the 
work  of  unnamed  theorists  who  have  more 
lately  built,  of  the  same  material,  on  the  same 
foundations. 


76  TEE  MOV  LB    OF  DOCTRINE. 

ANALOGY   OF   ROMAN   TO   JEWISH    BELIEFS. 

It  should  be  remembered  that  those  ^^  ruling 
ideas  in  early  ages"  which  Canon  Mozley  has  so 
admirably  delineated,  still  survived  in  PauFs 
time,  and  in  fact,  have  only  slowly  receded  be- 
fore the  advancing  pressure  of  the  gospel.  Chief 
among  these  was  the  notion  of  right,  as  the 
creature  exclusively  of  birth,  of  ceremonial,  or 
of  law.  The  individual  had  indeed  not  emerged 
into  view,  as  a  possessor  of  rights,  or  even  as  a 
subject  of  thought  apart  from  the  corporate  life 
of  which  he  was  a  fractional  element.  Of  this 
wide  field,  however,  there  is  opportunity  only 
hastily  to  glance  at  the  limited  section  which 
embraces  the  question  immediately  in  hand. 

In  the  Jewish  household  of  Patriarchal  times 
lay,  yet  unseparated,  the  Family,  the  Church, 
and  the  State.  The  household  was  itself  incor- 
porate in  the  personality  of  the  Patriarch,  of 
which  wife,  house,  son,  servant,  ox,  and  ass  were 
regarded  as  in  the  strict  sense  the  property, 
indissolubly  sharing  his  rights  and  destiny.  The 
punishment  of  Achan  would  have  been  incom- 
plete, had  it  not  extended  to  all  his  belongings, 
which  were  truly  parts  of  him.  Subsequently 
the  household  grew  through  the  tribe  to  the 
nation^  and   through   the  Mosaic  Institute  was 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRIXE.  77 

merged  into  the  State,  which  thereupc  n  absorbed 
all  priestly,  social,  and  civic  functions.  Still, 
however,  the  individual  had  no  recognition, 
religious  or  political,  except  through  the  high- 
l)riest,  or  as  incorporated  in  the  ^^congregation." 
The  rite  of  circumcision  had  been  from  the  be- 
ginning the  seal  of  ancestral  rights,  and  still  re- 
mained the  badge  and  guaranty  of  membership 
in  the  commonwealth.  By  its  magical  power 
ev^en  an  alien  could  be  "adopted"  into  citizen- 
ship, and  through  a  legal  fiction  counted  as  a 
home-born  child.  How  completely  the  Jewish 
conception  of  prerogative  was  bounded  by  polit- 
ical, hereditary,  and  ceremonial  lines,  is  manifest 
from  Paul's  words  to  the  Ephesians  (2  :  12). 
The  uncircumcised  Gentile,  whatever  his  per- 
sonal attainments  or  character,  being  an  "alien 
from  the  commonwealth  of  Israel,"  and  from 
defect  of  birth  a  "stranger  from  the  covenants 
of  promise,"  is  accounted  as  necessarily  "having 
no  hope,  and  without  God  in  the  world."  To 
be  "cut  off  from  the  congregation"  was  to  the 
Jew  equivalent  to  being  cut  off  from  life  itself. 
Not  one  of  these  conceptions  could  have  been 
unfamiliar  to  the  Roman.  While  stronger  em- 
phasis in  his  scheme  lay  on  the  imperial  than  on 
the  hereditary  element,  yet  so  complete  an 
analogy  existed  between  the  Roman  an  i  Jewish 


78  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

exaltation  of  political,  ancestral,  and  ceremonial 
right,  that  the  Roman  might  fairly  be  called  a 
secular  Jew.  The  Patria  Potestas  was  in  full 
force — extending  even  to  the  power  of  life  and 
death  over  the  son,  whose  independent  existence, 
even,  was  not  recognized  by  the  law.  The  loss 
of  citizenship,  as  Ortolan  tells  us,'  was  the  loss 
of  liberty,  and,  as  the  slave  was  not  accounted  a 
person,  but  a  thing,  amounted  to  civil  extinction. 
"Adoption"  was  analogous  to  circumcision,  in- 
vesting the  stranger  with  a  fictitious  kinship, 
through  pontifical  ceremony.'^  Paul  knew  how  to 
make  the  chief  captain  "afraid,"  who  had  "bound 
him  with  thongs."  ^  After  the  true  Roman  spirit 
he  appealed,  not  to  his  personal  innocence,  but  to 
his  political  and  ancestral  claims,  for  he  was  "a 
Roman,"  and  that  not  artificially,  for  he  was 
"  free-born." 

PAUL  AGAIIfST  THESE  BELIEFS. 

Now  it  was  inevitable  that  in  the  mind  of 
both  Jew  and  Roman  the  new  idea  which  Paul 
brought  should  at  first  tend  to  fall  into,  and  take 
form  from,  the  "mould"  of  their  preconcept'on. 
They  would  identify  the  Church  with  the  State, 
whereupon  membership  in  the  one  would  follow 

^  History  of  Roman  Law,  (London,  1871),  p.  607. 
2/6.,  p.  .58L         ^ Acts  22:  29. 


THE  MOULD    OB  DOCTRINE.  79 

citizenship  in  the  other.  Or  they  would  allot 
its  privileges  according  to  hereditary  right,  reck- 
oning the  father's  adhesion  to  the  new  order  as 
necessarily  involving  his  posterity  and  investing 
them  also  with  his  new  relations.  The  new 
initiatory  rite  they  would  be  likely  to  regard  as 
a  mere  outward  sacramcntum  by  which  the  indi- 
vidual, not  born  a  citizen  of  the  new  State  or  an 
heir  of  the  new  race,  might  be  formally  incorpo- 
rated therein  after  the  analogy  of  the  Jewish 
circumcision  or  the  Koman  adoption.  It  is  evi- 
dent, therefore,  why  the  Apostle  lays  so  much 
emphasis  on  that  rite  itself  as  supplying  a  new 
"mould''  of  conception,  and  why  he  devotes  the 
preceding  chapter  of  the  Epistle  to  a  preparatoiy 
dislodgement  of  the  misapprehensions  above  re- 
ferred to. 

He  attacks  first  the  idea  of  salvation  by  cor- 
porate relation.  Let  the  Roman  boast  of  his 
share  in  the  majesty  of  the  Empire,  and  the 
righteousness  of  his  Twelve  Tables.  These  cor- 
porate splendors  had  not  saved  individual  men 
form  the  Gehenna  of  shame  and  misery  depicted 
in  that  livid  first  chapter  of  the  Epistle.  Let  the 
Jew  glory  in  the  "election"  of  Israel,  and  the 
possession  of  the  divine  "Ten  Words."  But 
"they  are  not  all  Israel  which  are  of  Israel": 
and  though  the  law  be  "holy,  just,  and  good/^ 


80  lUE  MOULD   OF  DOCTRINE. 

not  the  ^4iearer"  thereof  but  the  "doer"  alone 
is  justified.  God  "will  render  to  every  man/^ 
not  according  to  his  corporate  claims  whether  he 
be  Jew  or  Gentile,  but  "  according  to  his  deeds/^ 
and  by  those  deeds,  his  own  law  being  witness, 
"shall  no  flesh  be  justified.'^ 

He  turns  next  to  the  notion  of  salvation  by 
ceremonial.  "Our  Rabbins  have  said,"  writes 
Rabbi  Menachem,  "that  no  circumcised  man 
will  see  hell."  Augustine,  who  made  baptism 
the  counterpart  of  circumcision,  taught  that  both 
were  saving  rites.^  But  Paul  declares  that 
Abraham  was  saved  before  he  was  circumcised, 
and  that  circumcision  was  but  the  palpable 
"sign"  and  "seal"  of  an  accomplished  fact.^ 
The  outward  form,  therefore,  he  argues,  creates 
nothing,  and  even  as  a  symbol  means  nothing 
except  there  be  first  a  "circumcision  of  the 
heart."  It  is  plain,  therefore,  that  the  over- 
weening confidence  of  Jew  and  Roman  in  the 
thaumaturgic  power  of  rites  has  no  tolerance 
in  the  Apostle's   thought. 

Closely  connected  with  this  idea  is  the  further 
notion  of  hereditary  grace  through  lineal  descent. 
This  inveterate  conceit  of  the  Jews,  so  diametric- 
ally opposed  to  the  whole  genius  of  Christianity, 

1  See  Ecclesi'a.,  2  :  57. 

2  Romans  4 :  11, 


TUE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  81. 

and  so  strangely  given  a  posthumous  life  in 
modern  systems,  is  assaulted  in  the  New  Testa- 
ment li'om  end  to  end.  It  is  Avorth  noticing  that 
the  very  first  mention  of  the  Abrahamic  covenant 
in  the  New  Testament  is  in  connection  with  the 
ordinance  of  baptism,  and  involves  a  distinct 
repudiation  of  the  modern  birth-right  theory. 
"Think  not  to  say  within  youi-selves,  We  have 
Abraham  to  our  father/'  says  John  the  Baptist  to 
the  Pharisees  who  came  to  be  baptized,  '^for  I 
say  unto  you  that  God  is  able  of  these  stones  to 
raise  up  children  unto  Abraham." 

Paul  here  declares  the  whole  theory  which 
interprets  the  Abrahamic  covenant  "as  pert  lining 
to  the  flesh''  unsound.  Abraham  himself  was 
justified,  not  by  circumcision  "in  the  flesh,"  as  w^e 
have  seen,  nor  by  incorporation  in  the  Jewish 
commonwealth  "according  to  the  flesh,"  for  that 
did  not  exist  in  his  day.  The  covenant  did  not  run 
with  descent  "according  to  the  flesh,"  for  "Jn 
Isaac  shall  thy  seed  be  called"  while  Ishmael  *s 
rejected.  It  could  not  be  limited  to  Israel  alone 
"according  to  the  flesh,"  for  the  very  name 
Abraham  is  "  father  of  many  nations."  He  con- 
cludes, therefore,  that  as  Abraham  himself  was 
saved  by  faith  alone,  the  covenant  inures  to  all 
"  them  who  also  walk  in  the  steps  of  that  faith  of 
our  father  of  Abraham,  which  he  had  being  yet 


82  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

uncircumclscrl ;  that  he  might  be  the  father  of 
all  them  that  believe,  though  they  be  nc»t  circum- 
cised." If  these  apostolic  propositions  be  not  seen 
at  once  clearly  to  obliterate  the  foundations  of  the 
national,  the  hereditary,  and  the  sacramental 
theories  of  the  church,  it  would  be  vain  to  seek 
further  to  elaborate  or  emphasize  them. 

THE   CENTRAL   TRUTH   OF   CHRISTIANITY. 

The  Apostle  now  approaches  the  very  heart 
of  the  Epistle  and  of  Christianity — the  doctrine 
which  he  terms  the  "justification  of  life"  (ch.  5: 
18).  There  is  a  law  anterior  to  and  far  deeper 
than  the  Roman  or  the  Mosaic  code,  of  which 
indeed  they  are  but  feeble  and  fragmentary  ex- 
cerpts. Our  corporate  relation  to  the  universe 
is  one  of  more  consequence  than  to  microcosmic 
Bome  or  Israel,  and  it  depends  on  our  attituc^e 
toward  that  law.  The  true  ancestral  question, 
also,  reaches  back,  not  to  Abraham  only,  but  to 
Adam,  in  whom  the  trend  of  race  destiny  was 
established.  On  the  one  side  of  law  are  sin  and 
death— root  and  fruit ;  on  the  other  side,  in  like 
relation,  righteousness  and  life.  Justification  is 
that  rightening  with  law  which  effects  transition 
from  sin  to  righteousness,  and  so  from  death  to 
life.  Death  coming  into  the  world  by  Adam 
and  "passing  through  to  all  men"  since,  is  proof 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  83 

conclusive  of  condemnation,  and  disjointing  of 
our  relations  with  the  universe.  Life  in  the 
risen  Christ  is  equally  conclusive  of  justification 
and  a  restored  citizenship  in  the  commonwealth 
of  God.  "Christ  being  raised  from  the  dead, 
dieth  no  more:  death  no  more  hath  dominion 
over  him."  For  Christ's  is  that  ^^  better  resur- 
rection," now  for  the  first  time  manifest,  by 
which  he  became  the  ^^ first-horn  from  the  dead" 
— a  birth  "new,"  not  in  time  only,  but  as  the 
Greek  words  commonly  used  imply,  "new"  in 
kind.^ 

It  is  evident,  therefore,  that  in  Christ's  death 
and  resurrection  we  find  the  analogue  of  that 
spiritual  process  through  which  we  too  are  "jus- 
tified," being  "born  anew."  We  are  "justified 
by  faith,"  but "  he  that  hath  died  is  justified  from 
sin."^  "If  any  man  come  unto  me  .  .  .  and 
hate  not  his  own  life  also,"  said  our  Lord,  "he 
cannot  be  my  disciple."  As,  therefore,  our 
Lord  "of  himself"  "laid  down  his  life  that  he 
might  take  it  again,"  "being  raised  again  for 
our  justification,"  so  faith,  not  "counting  life 
dear  unto  itself,"  willingly  "surrenders  it  for 
Christ's  sake,"  that  it  may  "find  it"  ancAV  in 
him.      Fitly,  therefore,  our   Lord's   death   and 

J  See  Trench,  Synontjms,  Part  II.,  (New  York,  1868), 
p  42.  ^ Romans^ -."i  [Canterhury  Revision). 


84  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

resurrection  and  our  analogous  spiritual  new- 
birth  are  jointly  symbolized  in  that  act  of  faith 
in  which  the  believer  voluntarily  "lays  down 
liis  life"  also,  that  he  may  resume  it  again,  not 
bv  his  own  act,  but  throuo;h  another  hand  in 
Christ's  name,  as  his  avowed  servant,  henceforth 
"to  walk  in  newness  of  life." 

For  it  cannot  be  too  often  reiterated  that  the 
central  idea  of  baptism  is  not  a  meagre  and 
imperfect  "purification,"  but  that  complete  and 
marvellous  "new  birth"  w^hich  alone  made 
PauFs  message  "a  go.spel,"  "the  power  of  God 
unto  salvation  to  every  one  that  bellevdh:  to  the 
Jew  first,  and  also  to  the  Greek."  The  symbolic 
essence  of  baptism  is  therefore,  according  to  the 
Apostle's  arguments,  not  the  cleansing  "applica- 
tion of  water,"  but  the  "  burial "  of  that  "  breath 
which  is  in  man's  nostrils"  into  an  element  in 
which  breath  and  thereby  life  is  cut  off,  and  its 
being  raised  thence  by  exterior  power.  Dean 
Goulburn,  of  the  English  Church,  tersely  puts 
it  thus :  "Animation  having  been  fc)r  one  mo- 
ment suspended  beneath  the  waters,  a  type  this 
of  the  interruption  of  man's  energies  by  death, 
the  body  is  lifted  up  again  into  the  air  by  way 
of  expressing  emblematically  the  new  birth  of 
resurrection."^    We  can  but  join  in  his  expressed 

^  Bampton  Lectures  (1850),  Oxford  Edition,  p.  18. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  85 

"regret"  that  "the  form  of  administration  un- 
avoidably (if  it  be  unavoidably)  adopted  in  cold 
climates  should  utterly  obscure  the  emblematic 
significance  of  the  rite,  and  render  unintelligible 
to  all  but  the  educated  the  Apostle's  association 
of  burial  and  resurrection  with  the  ordinance/* 
"Were  immersion  universally  practiced,"  he  adds, 
"this  association  of  two  at  present  heterogeneous 
ideas  would  become  intelligible  to  the  humblest.'' 
How  "obedience  from  the  heart"  to  this 
"mould  of  doctrine"  may  give  outline  to  the 
whole  c»f  the  Christian  life,  Archbishop  Cranmer 
tell  us  after  his  vigorous  manner:  "The  dipping 
into  the  water  doth  betoken  that  the  old  Adam 
with  all  his  sin  and  evil  lusts  ought  to  be 
drowned  and  killed  by  daily  contrition  and 
repentance."  "  The  Apostle  here  teaches,"  adds 
Bishop  Wordsworth,  "that  the  doctrine  of  our 
ncAV  birth  in  baptism  is  a  practical  doctrine,  and 
is  indeed  the  root  of  all  Christian  practice."  * 

BAPTISM    NOT   A   PURIFICATION. 

The  idea  of  purification  is  never  in  the  New 
Testament  explicitly  associated  with  baptism,  and 
the  term  "wash"  but  once.  In  that  sole  in- 
stance it  was  Ananias'  word  with  reference  to 
the  baptism  of   Paul  himself.     It  may  be  re- 

^  Commentary  on  Netv  Testament,  p.  230. 


86  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCIRINB. 

marked  incidentally  that  in  that  case  immersion 
was  necessarily  implied :  for  the  Greek  louOy  Dr. 
Robinson's  New  Testament  Lexicon  bein^  witness, 
is  never  used  except  the  whole  person  be  involved. 
But  it  is  more  significant  to  notice  that  the  em- 
phasis is  laid,  not  on  washing  the  man,  but 
washing  away  sin;  that  is  to  say,  in  Cranmer's 
(and  also  Luther's)  phrase,  "drowning  the  old 
Adam,'^  as  the  old  world  was  flooded  and 
"washed  away"  from  JN^oah.  Alluding  to 
Noah's  case  (one  of  the  two  typical  events  of 
the  Old  Testament  to  which  the  term  baptism 
is  applied  in  the  New)  Peter  distinctly  antici- 
pates and  repels  that  false  interpretation  of  the 
ordinance  which  makes  it  a  mere  "putting  away 
of  the  filth  of  the  flesh."  Noah  was  not 
cleansed  by  the  "application  of  water,"  nor 
has  that  "figure"  any  conceivable  "likeness" 
to,  or  connection  with,  the  "resurrection  of 
Christ."  He  lays  emphasis  instead  on  that 
loyal  "answer  of  a  good  conscience  toward 
God"  by  which  Noah  became,  as  the  Epistle 
to  the  Hebrews  phrases  it,  "the  heir  of  right- 
eousness by  faith."  His  loyalty  was  manifested 
in  the  unhesitating  surrender  of  his  life  into 
God's  hand,  to  be  shut  up  into  an  unprecedented 
structure,  without  rudder,  chart,  or  compass; 
wliereupon  he  sailed  through  the  flood  of  death 


THE  MOULD    OF  DGCTBiyE,  87 

to  the  shores  of  a  new  life,  and  became,  like 
Christ,  in  a  manner  the  ^'first-born  of  the  dead.'^ 
"The  like  figure  (literally  "the  antitype") 
whereunto,"  adds  the  Apostle,  "baptism  doth 
now  save  us  .  .  .  by  the  resurrection  of  Jesus 
Christ." 

Turning  to  the  other  Old  Testament  type 
adduced  by  Paul,  we  are  told  that  the  redeemed 
people  were  "all  baptized  unto  Moses  in  the 
cloud  and  in  the  sea."  Much  childish  hilarity 
has  been  indulged  by  those  who  think  baptism 
consists  in  the  cleansing  "application  of  water," 
over  the  seeming  incongruity  of  an  "  immersion," 
while  going  over  the  sea  "dry  shod."  It  is  not 
difficult  to  see  that  such  triflers  indulge  in  a  bad 
joke  at  their  own  expense.  For  if  the  Israelites 
were  untouched  by  water,  as  is  implied  in  the 
narrative,  and  still  were  baptized,  it  is  plain  that 
baptism  cannot  be  "washing."  On  the  other 
hand,  remember  that  the  Children  of  Israel  were 
commanded  by  Moses  in  God's  name  to  "go  for- 
ward "  into  the  as  yet  unparted  sea,  and  that  they 
boldly  surrendered  their  lives  to  his  word;  and 
so  "  by  faith  they  passed  through  the  Red  Sea  as 
by  dry  land :  which  the  Egyptians  assaying  to  do 
were  drowned."  "By  that  act,"  says  Bunsen, 
"history  was  born;"  for  by  it  Israel  "passed 
over"  from  continent  to  continent,  from  slavery 


88  TEE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

to  freedom,  from  the  kingdom  of  Pharoah  to  the 
kingdom  of  God.  How  thoroughly  does  all  this 
harmonize  with  the  figurative  language  of  the 
Epistle  to  the  Romans.  They  had  been  "  buried  " 
as  Egyptian  slaves:  they  had  been  "raised'^  as 
God's  freemen  to  "newness  of  life."  They  were 
"justified" — that  is,  completely  changed  in 
relation,  but  not  yet  "  sanctified  " — ^that  is,  pro- 
gressively changed  in  character.  "  Sin  "  had 
"  po  more  "  rightful  "  dominion  over  them,"  for 
they  had  "  died  "  to  it ;  but  they  were  yet  so  to 
"yield  their  members  unto  righteousne&'s "  that 
it  should  have  no  real  dominion.  They  were  got 
clean  out  of  Egypt,  but  Egypt  was  yet  by  slow 
and  painful  discipline  to  be  got  out  of  them. 
They  were  "  perfect "  as  "  new-born  "  babes,  but 
not  perfect,  nor  by  any  further  "  birth "  to  be- 
come so,  as  full-grown  men. 

Thus  it  is  manifest  that  into  an  unbroken 
"  mould "  Old  Testament  type,  New  Testament 
resurrection,  and  perennial  new  birth  and  justifi- 
cation alike  fit  with  an  exactness  that  reveals 
their  affinity  one  with  another,  and  links  them 
all  to  an  antecedent  faith,  whose  "  obedience  "  is 
expressed  therein.  Symbolically  the  believer 
thus  pictures  forth  to  men  the  transaction  by 
which  he  has  spiritually  "passed  over"  from 
"  the  law  of  sin  ^nd  death "  to  the  "  law  of  the 


IHE   MCULD    OF  D0C2KINE.  89 

Spirit  of  life  in  Christ  Jesus/'  wherein,  and 
not  wherefrom,  he  has  been  ^^made  free."  He 
has  died  "  io  sin  "  that  he  might  not  die  '^in  his 


CHAPTER  VI. 

BAPTISM  AND  THE  NEW  BIH TIT—PERVERSIONS 
AND  THEIR  SOURCES. 

WHAT  mean  ye  by  this  service  ?^^  This  was 
the  question  which,  as  Moses  declared,  the 
Passover  ordinance  was  expected  and  intended  to 
provoke  from  successive  generations.  We  may 
gather  from  the  terms  employed  a  significant 
hint  of  the  essential  nature  and  functions  of  an 
ordinance.  It  was  a  "service/^  that  is  to  say, 
something  done  because  commanded,  and  since 
the  "servant  is  not  above  his  master,"  done  as 
commanded.  It  had  a  "meaning,''  specific  and 
intelligible.  It  was  God's  chosen  symbol  to 
body  forth  his  chosen  thought.  To  have  sub- 
stituted some  supposed  higher  service  for  exact 
obedience  would  have  been  disobedience.  King 
Saul  tried  that,  and  found  a  quick  passage  into 
history,  branded  with  the  stinging  legend,  "to 
obey  is  better  than  sacrifice."  To  have  modified 
the  symbol  as  if  to  express  some  w^iser  thought,  or 
to  express  the  appointed  thought  in  some  wiser 
way,  would  have  been  to  insinuate  indiscretion 

90 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTBUVE.  91 

in  the  Omniscient  One  in  not  taking  earlier 
counsel  of  the  assumed  reviser.  "He  that  rc- 
proveth  God,  let  him  answer  it.'^ 

"What  mean  yef^^  said  the  children  to  the 
fathei-s,  and  this  could  be  easily  told  and  easily 
understood.  For  so  vividly  did  the  appointed 
rite  reproduce  the  salient  features  of  that  memo- 
rable time,  in  which  God  "  passed-over  "  sheltered 
Israel,  and  Israel  "passed-over"  the  sea — that 
3ven  the  child  must  recognize  the  likeness  of  the 
Dne  in  the  other.  But  all  that  God  meant  thereby 
neither  fathers  nor  children  could  as  yet  tell.  No 
— nor  can  we  to  whom  the  "mystery  hid  from 
the  ages"  has  been  revealed:  for  it  is  a  mystery 
that  forever  "passeth  knowledge,"  into  which 
still  even  "angels  desire  to  look." 

THE   SYMBOLISM   OF   THE   ORDINANCES. 

This  is  the  common  mark  of  the  Divine,  in 
ordinance  and  prophecy,  that  while  simple  and 
obvious  in  their  primary  import,  they  hint  far 
more  than  they  disclose.  So  do  they  in  their 
deep-lying  principles  tap  the  roots  of  things — so 
do  they  continually  freshen  and  deepen  them- 
selves in  meaning,  aptly  interpreting  new  phases 
of  fact  and  feeling,  and  finding  "springing  and 
germinant  fulfilment"  in  growing  history — so  do 
they  by  subtle  allusion  touch  secret  doors  opening 


92  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE, 

into  byways  of  discovery,  as  to  remind  us  that 
he  who  framed  the  ordinances  of  the  church  is 
the  same  God  who  also  established  the  "ordi- 
nances of  heaven."  Reverently  we  watch  the 
trial  of  the  perfectness  of  those  heavenly  ordi- 
nances, as  the  planet  lays  its  pulse-beat  open  on 
the  sun,  and  brings  the  chronometry  of  centuries 
to  the  test  of  seconds ;  and  lo !  a  spider's  film  is 
not  delicate  enough  to  find  a  margin  of  variance. 
How  more  devoutly  ought  we  to  study,  and  rever- 
ently to  deal  with,  those  earthly  ordinances  meant 
to  steady  a  sublimer  pulse-beat  and  measure  the 
arc  of  a  longer  flight,  even  that  of  a  soul,  whose 
fulfilment  of  its  course  is  one  day  to  be  laid  open 
and  measured  against  the  sun. 

The  prophets  could  not  comprehend  the  full 
meaning  of  the  sayings  given  them  to  utter;  all 
the  less  could  they  safely  dwarf  or  alter  them, 
but  they  could  "speak  God's  word  faithfully." 
Israel  could  read  the  historic,  but  not  the  deeper 
prophetic,  meaning  of  the  Passover.  So  far  it 
was  to  them  a  message  sealed.  But  all  the  more 
reverently  did  they  guard  the  sacred  mystery, 
and  bring  it  to  later  ages  safe  under  the  un- 
violated  seal ;  thus  "  not  unto  themselves,  but  unto 
us  they  did  minister  "  a  blessing  greater  than  they 
knew.  Surely  the  ordinances  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment are  not  narrower  in  range,  nor  do  they 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE,  93 

enshrine  a  mystery  less  profound,  than  those  of 
the  Old.  Accordingly  our  Lord  did  not  lay, 
even  uj)on  his  Apostles,  the  delicate  and  perilous 
task  of  readjusting  as  if  ill-devised,  or  ^^ de- 
veloping'^ as  if  incomplete,  appointments  om- 
nisciently  prepared;  nor  did  he  demand  even  a 
perfect  comprehension  of  the  depth  and  ultimate 
bearing  of  his  commands :  he  asked  only  a  pos- 
sible and  far  humbler  service,  viz.,  that  they 
would  "keep''  his  "words."  The  "faithful" 
servant  in  the  parable  is  reckoned  also  "wise." 
For  though  the  "  servant  knoweth  not  what  his 
Lord  doeth,"  he  may  still  borrow  of  his  Lord's 
wisdom  and  further  his  Lord's  end  by  obeying 
unquestioniugly  his  Lord's  command. 

"What  mean  ye  by  this  service?"  let  us  ask 
of  Paul,  concerning  either  of  Christ's  ordinances. 
His  answer  is  unequivocal.  Its  authority  rests 
wholly  on  Christ's  word.  He  has  "received 
from  the  Lord  Jesus"  what  he  has  "delivered 
unto"  us;  and  delivered  as  he  received  it.  The 
ordinances,  like  the  gospel,  were  given  him  "in 
trust,"  and  not  even  "an  angel  from  heaven" 
might  authorize  the  violation  of  that  trust,  nor 
could  he  alter  without  destroying.  The  primary 
meaning  of  each  ordinance  is  likewise  in  Paul's 
teaching  palpable.  In  baptism,  to  which  we 
here  espe(  ially  turn,  the  historic  resurrection  of 


94  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

the  Lord  is  reenacted  in  outline,  as  we  liave 
seen,  and  the  analogous  spiritual  new  birth 
thereby  symbolized.  It  emphasizes  the  fact  of 
the  resurrection,  and  the  reality  of  the  new  birth. 
But  beyond  this  it  fastens  attention  on  the  old 
question  of  the  disciples,  ^^  what  the  rising  from  the 
dead  should  mean'':  and  sets  men  asking  again 
with  Nicodemus  concerning  the  new  birth  "  how 
can  these  things  be?" 

If  the  sole  aim  of  baptism  were  to  impale 
thoughtless  men  on  these  questions,  it  would  be 
no  unworthy  consummation,  nor  foreign  to  the 
central  issues  of  to-day. 

WHAT   DOES   INFANT   BAPTISM   MEAN? 

But  again  we  ask  those  who  are  sprinkling 
water  upon  a  babe  in  the  name  of  the  Trinity, 
^'What  mean  ye  by  this  service?"  The  most 
noticeable  feature  of  the  somewhat  multitudinous 
and  chaotic  reply  will  be  that  no  one  ventures  to 
turn  for  authority,  as  Paul  turns  concerning 
primitive  baptism,  to  the  explicit  command  of 
Christ.  For  no  one  is  mad  enough  to  claim  that 
our  Lord  ever  by  any  specific  word  commanded 
men  to  be  sprinkled,  or  babes  to  be  in  any  way 
baptized.  The  utmost  that  is  claimed  is  that  the 
word  used  by  him  was  so  generically  comprehen- 
sive, and  so  vague,  that  by  a  liberal  construction 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  95 

these  ideas  may  be  sheltered  inclusively  under 
the  outer  edges  of  its  meaning:  that  baptism  is 
not  necessarily  confined  by  Scripture  to  immer- 
sion, nor  to  adults — only  that.      The  XXXIX. 
Articles  of  the    Church   of  England  say,  *'The 
baptism  of  young  children  is  in  anywise  to  be  re- 
tained in  the  Church  as  most  agreeable  with  the 
institution  of  Christ/'      The  Methodist  Aiiicles 
more  curtly  say,  "The  baptism  of  young  children 
is  to  be  retained  in  the  Church."  ^  While  the  most 
recent  utterance  of  all,   that  of  the   Reformed 
Episcopal  Church,  proposes  as  justifying  the  re- 
tention of  the  form,  the  cautious  statement  that  it 
is  "  not  contrary  to  Scripture,^'  and  is  conformable 
to  "ancient  usage.'' ^     It  will  be  observed  that 
all  these  recognize  the  institution  as  existing  and 
to  be  "retained,"  but  there  is,  in  all,  significant 
silence  as  to  its  origin  and  credentials;  unless  the 
tracing  it  to  "ancient  usage"  be  meant  as  a  return 
with  Rome  to  the  sufficiency  of  tradition.     The 
Council  of  Trent  did,  indeed,  claim  that  the  bap- 
tism  of   infants   was  "instituted   by   our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ " ;  but  this  was  asserted  equally  of  all 
the  seven  sacraments,  and  on  the  authority,  not 
of  Scripture,  but  of  an  alleged  Apostolic  Tradi- 
tion.     Cardinal   Bellarmine   places   among   the 

*  Schaff,  Creeds  of  Christendom,  vol.  III. 
*/6.,vol.  Ill,  p.  820. 


96  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

things  depending  wholly  on  tradition,  because 
not  found  in  Scripture — with  the  perpetual  vir- 
ginity of  Mary,  the  perpetual  recurrence  of  Easter 
on  Sunday,  and  Purgatory  (which  Luther  believed, 
)^et  admitted  it  could  not  be  found  in  Scripture) 
— "infant  baptism,  which  is  necessary  to  be 
believed,  but  neither  Romanists  nor  Protestants 
can  prove  it  from  Scripture."^  The  Romanist 
Mohler  adds,  that  the  retention  of  the  custom  is 
'^utterly  incomprehensible,  according  to  the 
Protestant  view."  The  Anabaptists,  he  says, 
drew  the  natural  conclusion  from  Luther's 
premises,  and  he  was  powerless  to  answer  them.^ 
The  impression  made  by  this  difficulty  upon, 
and  the  share  it  had  in  shaping  the  history  of, 
two  men  alike  so  spleudid  in  endowment,  so 
acute  in  criticism,  so  candid  and  lovable  in  char- 
acter, as  John  H.  and  Francis  W.  Newman,  yet 
ultimately  driven  wide  as  the  Poles  asunder  in 
faith,  ought  not  to  be  overlooked.  The  dis- 
covery of  the  spuriousness  of  the  "decretals" 
and  other  alleged  early  documents  upon  which 
Rome  had  rested  the  authority  of  her  traditions, 
had  left  her  without  even  this  gwa^i-apostolic 
basis  of  support.     All  her  novelties,  their  base 

1  Browne,  on  The  Thirty-nine  Articles  (London,  1865), 
p.  137. 

'^  Symbolism  (New  York,  Thi -d  Edition),  p.  208. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  97 

being  cut  away,  hung  like  a  mirage  in  the  air, 
ready  to  vanish.  To  meet  this  "difficulty/' 
John  H.  Newman  broached  the  "hypothesis," 
since  so  prominent  in  all  discussions  of  the 
theme,  of  the  "  Developmext  of  Doctrine."  ^ 
Protestant  writers  have  been  ready  to  borrow,  as 
the  sole  possible  resource  in  the  authentication 
of  infant  baptism,  this  theory,  which  its  inventor 
himself  regarded  as  worthless,  if  it  did  not  vindi- 
cate all  the  peculiarities  of  the  Romish  Church. 
Commenting  on  that  one  of  the  Tkirty-Nine 
Articles  of  his  own  Church  which  bears  on  this 
subject,  Principal  G.  A.  Jacob  says :  Infant  bap- 
tism "is  not  mentioned  in  the  New  Testament 
— no  instance  of  it  is  recorded  there — no  allusion 
is  made  to  its  effects — no  directions  are  given  for 
its  administration — it  is  not  an  Apostolic  ordi- 
nance;" but  he  adds:  "\ye  find  in  the  New 
Testament  the  fundamental  idea  from  which  it 
was  afterwards  developed."^ 

Not  so  easily  did  Francis  W.  Newman  dispose 
of  this  stumbling-block  in  the  Avay :  one  of  the 
first,  as  he  tells  us  (in  the  pathetic  history  of  his 
soul  struggles  recorded  in  his  Phases  of  Faith)^ 
to  escape  which  he  turned  aside  from  the  beaten 

^Development  of  Christian  Doctrine,  (London,  1845), 
2  Ecclesiastical  Polity  of  Neio  Testament,  p.  270 
»  (London,  1870),  pp  6,  9,  10. 


98  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

]iath.  Being  a  candidate  for  orders  in  the 
Church,  he  was  shocked,  on  approaching  this 
subject,  to  find  baptismal  regeneration  plainly 
taught  in  the  Articles,  and  as  plainly  evaded  by 
clergymen,  as  it  seemed  to  him,  through  '^shifts 
inv^ented  to  avoid  the  disagreeable  necessity  of 
resigning  their  functions/'  All  the  defences  of 
infant  baptism  he  found  to  partake  of  the  same 
Jesuitical  spirit:  involving  the  attempt  to  fasten 
upon  the  Scriptures  by  insinuation  the  responsi- 
bility of  a  custom  which  could  not  be  directly 
derived  from  them.  "  Even  if  they  can  be  made 
to  confirm,  they  could  not  have  suggested  or 
established,  it."  The  sharp  recoil  against  dis- 
covered disingenuousness  in  sacred  things  in- 
tensified itself  into  a  suspicious  temper,  grew  to 
cynicism,  and  so  he  went  out  into  a  realm  "lonely 
as  the  desert  behind  Algiers,''  where  he  still 
Avanders  solitary  and  uncomforted,  while  the 
night  comes  on. 

HOW   SPRINKLING   IS   DEFENDED. 

The  practice  of  sprinkling  is  equally  devoid 
of  Scriptural  warrant,  and  carries  with  it  the 
marks  of  human  and — in  its  extended  applica- 
tion— comparatively  modern  intrusion.  Cere- 
monial corruptions,  says  Archbishop  Whately, 
are  "  first  overlooked,  then  tolerated,  then  sane- 


TEE  MOULD   OF  DOCTRINE.  99 

tloncd,  and  finally  embodied  in  a  system;  of 
which  they  are  rather  to  be  regarded  as  the  cause 
than  the  effect."^  When  the  African  Bishop 
Cyprian  uttered  the  hesitating,  but  amiable  sug- 
gestion, that  the  drenching  of  the  bed-ridden 
convert  in  water  might  graciously  be  accepted  as 
confessedly  imperfect,  but  in  such  case  the  only 
possible  approach  to  the  divine  immersion^ — 
probably  he  little  thought  an  exception  based 
upon  so  timid  and  casual  a  venture  of  opinion 
would  one  day  assume  to  be  the  rule,  to  the 
practical  exclusion  of  the  divine  order  itself. 
Yet  through  that  insignificant  breach,  the  deep 
waters  of  baptism  have  shallowed  down  until 
they  are  at  length  reduced  to  tiny  drops  trick- 
ling on  an  infant's  forehead.  The  watermarks 
of  this  decline  are  plainly  visible,  as  will  here- 
after be  shown,  in  the  history  of  the  modification 
of  ecclesiastical  formularies:  the  juxtaposition 
of  the  new  and  the  surviving  old  producing  in 
some  cases  a  sense  of  incongruity  as  striking  as 
the  sight  of  the  baker's  loaves  and  pans  set  in 
the  niches  and  mixed  with  the  sculptured  relics 
of  Vesta's  temple  at  Rome.  The  Methodist 
Discipline^  for  instance,  still  solemnly  cites  the 
traditional  warrant  for  infant  baptism,  ^^  Except 

*  Errors  of  Rome,  p.  16. 

2  "  Not  unlawful."     See  Cave,  Primitive  Christianity, 
(Oxford,  1840),  p.  ]  50. 


100         THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE, 

a  man  be  born  of  water,"  etc.,"  and  then  as 
solemnly  provides  a  teaspoonful  of  water  out  of 
which  the  child  is  to  be  ^^  born."  The  Anglican 
Catechism  of  1862  asks  the  ancient  question, 
"  What  is  the  outward  and  visible  sign  or  form 
in  baptism?"  and  returns  the  answer  novel,  in 
more  senses  than  one,  ^^  Water:  wherein  the 
person  is  baptized."^  According  to  this,  water 
itself  is  a  "mere  form^^  and  that  being  non- 
essential, may  be  dispensed  with. 

As  to  the  positive  symbolic  import  of  the 
sprinkling  of  water  upon  infants  under  the  name 
of  baptism,  enough  has  been  already  said  of  the 
multiplicity  and  incompatibility  of  modern  theo- 
ries, to  show  that  no  majority  vote  could  prob- 
ably be  obtained  in  favor  of  any  verdict  more 
definite  than  that  which  the  Pharisees  rendered 
concerning  the  origin  of  John^s  baptism,  "  We 
cannot  tell."  Nearly  all  the  Chiu*ches  —  to 
quote  substantially  the  language  of  Dr.  John 
Hall,  used  in  another  connection,  but  most  ajpro- 
pos  here — appeal  first  to  the  New  Testament: 
if  that  fails,  to  the  Old  Testament :  then  to  anti- 
quity: and  finally  conclude  that  no  inspired  rule 
is  given.  "So,"  he  says,  "loose  practice,  like 
loose  thinking,  always  seeks  to  represent  the 
standard  as  indefinite."  ^ 

1  Schaff,  Creeds  of  Christendom,  p.  521. 

2  Questions  of  the  Daj,  p.  273,  vol.  III. 


THE  MOULD   OF  DOCTRINE.  101 

It  is  probable,  however,  that  on  the  negative 
side  far  greater  definiteness  and  unanimity  might 
be  reached,  in  the  avowal  that  baptism  does  not 
symbolize  regeneration  by  faith.  This  is  logi- 
cally inevitable,  whether  or  not  it  take  the  form 
of  definite  avowal.  For  literally  the  sprinkling 
of  water  in  no  wise  touches  the  life,  or  even  re- 
motely shadows  forth  emergence  from  death  into 
life.  Theoretically,  as  applied  to  infants,  it  can- 
not imply  regeneration  by  faith,  for  faith  is  there 
impossible.  It  must  therefore,  in  such  case, 
either  be  held  to  effect  regeneration,  or  to  make 
no  allusion  to  it.  We  reach,  therefore,  this  re- 
markable result : 

AN   ENORMOUS   CX)NTRADlCTION. 

That  baptism,  which  was  in  Paul's  time  im- 
mersion, the  visible  ^'likeness  of  Christ's 
resurrection,"  and  the  symbol  of  the  believer's 
passage  through  death  to  life,  may  in  the  nine- 
teenth century  equally  well  be  pouring  or 
sprinkling,  which  are  alike  devoid  of  every  trace 
of  such  likeness,  or  of  such  symbolism;  that 
that  era-making  idea  of  the  new  birth — with 
which  our  Lord  startled  Nicodemus ;  with  which 
the  Apostles  "turned  the  world  upside  down"; 
and  which  has  been  the  inner  force  of  every 
great  religious  revolution  since;  which  our  Lord 


102  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE, 

"writ  large '^  in  a  s}nnbol  chosen  by  himself  and 
set  at  the  forefront  of  his  advancing  church — 
may  with  perfect  safety  be  pushed  from  its  place, 
and  the  notion  of  "purification,  consecration"  or 
what  not,  thrust  in  instead. 

Clearly  a  baptism  which  carefully  excludes 
from  its  purport  the  central  thought  which  Christ 
included,  and  so  refashions  the  outline  of  the  rite 
as  to  efface  all  traces  of  his  design,  and  adapt  it 
to  the  utterance  of  the  new  thought  so  alien  to 
his  own,  can  no  longer  be  Christ's  baptism.  And 
his  word  returns  again :  "  Ye  have  made  the  word 
of  God  of  none  effect  by  your  tradition." 

The  enormity  of  the  contradiction  reached 
through  these  perversions,  and  still  maintained 
by  those  who  declare  the  Bible  their  "  only  and 
sufficient  rule  of  faith  and  practice,"  is  startling. 
The  most  specious  if  not  the  only  apology, 
which  Protestantism  can  be  said  to  have  pro- 
duced, is  the  citation  of  that  perilous  principle 
which  Luther  himself  suggested — for  the  pro- 
tection, however,  not  only  of  infant  baptism, 
but  of  auricular  confession,  penance,  and  the 
bulk  of  the  Romish  innovations;^  and  to  which, 
as  we  have  seen,  the  Reformed  Episcopal  Church 
has  just  recurred,  viz. :  that  nothing  can  be  per- 
nicious that  is  sanctified  by  antiquity  and  not 
^  Hard  wick,  History  of  Thirty-Nine  Articles,  p.  14. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  103 

explicitly  forbidden  by  Scripture.  A  moment's 
consideration  will  show  that  this  is  a  revision, 
which  amounts  to  rescission,  of  the  Protestant 
Canon.  For  it  absurdly  proposes  two  "only'' 
rules,  Scripture  and  ancient  usage,  which,  how- 
ever, must  not  conflict.  But  conflict  is  in  fact 
inevitable;  for  "the  restless  spirit  of  man,"  says 
Canon  Liddon,  "cannot  but  at  last  press  a 
principle  to  the  real  limit  of  its  application,  even 
although  centuries  should  intervene  between  the 
premises  and  the  conclusion."  ^ 

Infant  baptism,  for  instance,  even  if  not  fairly 
included  under  the  authority  of  Christ's  commis- 
sion, seems  at  worst  only  a  harmless  superfluous 
form,  and  is  often  defended  on  that  plea.  But 
the  ver\^  foundation  principle  of  the  theory  which 
introduces  infant  baptism  compels  inevitably  the 
claiming  of  the  whole  field  for  it,  leaving  adult 
baptism,  save  in  heathen  nations,  exceptional  only. 
For  if  baptism  can  be  of  any  spiritual  service, 
independent  of  intelligence  or  volition,  it  would 
be  criminal  to  neglect  or  postpone  it.  That  fierce 
old  Christian  militant  who  made  his  motto  "bap- 
tism or  death "  was  an  evangelist  after  his  way : 
and  equally  so  that  enthusiastic  Churchman  who 
covertly  sought  to  save  the  Algerian  Moslems  not 

"^  Bampton  Lectures  (1866)  on  the  Divinity  of  Our 
Lord  (New  York,  1868),  p.  484. 


104         THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

long  since.  Standing  at  his  window  with  prayer- 
book  and  watering-pot  in  hand,  he  diligently  read 
the  baptismal  service  from  the  one,  and  from  the 
other  simultaneously  sprinkled  the  passers-by.^ 
But  baptism  in  unresisting  infancy  would, 
according  to  their  theory,  have  been  equally 
efficacious,  and  would  have  been  the  normal 
course:  for  it  would  have  saved  the  resort  to 
force  in  the  one  case  and  to  craft  in  the  other.^ 
It  is  evident,  then,  that  infant  baptism  and 
believers'  baptism  cannot  permanently  dwell 
together.  The  parasite,  once  fairly  lodged,  will, 
if  it  be  not  torn  away,  drink  the  life  and  usurp 
the  place  of  the  trunk  to  which  it  clings.  The 
church,  no  more  than  the  individual,  can  "serve 
two  masters."  Scripture  or  tradition  alone  must 
be  supreme. 

HOW   INFANT   BAPTISM    AROSE. 

As  to  the  antiquity  of  the  rite  of  infant  lustra- 
tion there  can  be  no  doubt.  Indeed,  it  might  be 
hard  to  resist  for  it  the  claim  which  one  of  the 
Romish  Fathers  has  triumphantly  brought  in 
vindication  of  the  practice  of  prayers  for  dead: 
that   it   was    "more    ancient   than   Christianity 

*  Westminster  Review,  114  (October,  1880),  p.  549. 
2  Curteis,  Bampton  Lectures,  p.  214. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  105 

itself."  ^  It  was  almost  the  universal  custom  of 
heathen  nations,  as  Mr.  Tylor  tells  us,  to  couple 
a  religious  meaning  with  the  washing  and 
naminor  of  the  child  after  birth.  The  Greeks 
and  Romans  practistKl,  not  only  infant  baptism, 
but  the  sprinkling  of  holy  water  upon  wor- 
shippers, as  a  purifying  symbol.^ 

But  when  or  how  the  baptism  of  infants  as  a 
Christian  rite  began  it  is  not  so  easy  to  say. 
Evil  did  not  first  come  into  the  world  in  the 
manifest  garb  or  with  the  honest  tramp  of  an 
open  foe,  but  with  the  gliding  of  the  serpent, 
"  more  subtle  than  any  beast  of  the  field."  "  No 
one,"  says  Archbishop  Whately,  "  can  point  out 
any  precise  period  when  the  Romish  corruptions 
began — ^they  crept  in  one  by  one — the  natural 
offspring  of  human  passions  unchecked."  ^  They 
"all  grew  out  of  natural  and  generally  praise- 
worthy impulses,  as  in  the  case  of  prayers  for  the 
dead,  supposed  to  be  in  purgatory,"  according 
to  Canon  IMozley.  But  these  worthy  impulses 
were  manipulated  constantly  to  an  unworthy 
end,  and  cannot  hallow  the  rites  they  confided 
in.  In  the  days  when  the  Roman  Republic  had 
superseded   the   Kingdom,  but    the   old  kingly 

'  MUller :  cited  in  Barrows'  PargaU  ry  (Americau 
Tract  Society,  1882).  p.  107. 

^Prwnhvt  Culture,  2  :  430,  439,  441. 
*  Errors  of  Home,  p.  11. 


1C6         THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

reverence  still  lingered,  "eight  ancient  kingly 
statues  stocxi  in  the  Capitol.  A  statue  of  Julius 
Caesar  was  placed  near  these,  two  years  before 
his  death,  with  the  covert  object  of  giving  him 
kingly  honors."  ^  The  statue  dumb  and  motion- 
less seemed  innocent,  but  in  fact  the  snow-white 
marble  was  dyed  deep  with  an  iniquitious  intent, 
and  the  candid  sculptor's  art  suborned  to  the 
basest  of  treacheries. 

So,  one  by  one  in  the  second  century  A.  D., 
there  crept  to  the  side  of  the  simple  rite  Christ 
had  appointed  new  "symbolic  elements  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  taste  of  the  time  and  the 
poetic  genius  of  the  East,  especially  of  the 
Egyptian  Church ; "  ^  beautiful,  tender,  seemingly 
harmless  and  even  helpful.  A  little  later  and 
these  new  features  have  multiplied,  got  into  the 
foreground,  taken  on  a  deep  and  awful  signifi- 
cance. The  brotherly  minister  has  become  a 
thaumaturgic  priest;  the  simple  bread  and  wine 
under  his  incantations  become  the  literal  body 
and  blood  of  the  Lord,  exclusion  from  the  taste 
of  which,  for  child  or  man,  is  death;  the  bap- 
tismal water  must,  equally  with  the  bread  and 
wine,  be  "trans-elemented"  by  the  pouring  in 

1  G.  C.  Lewis,  Credibility  of  Early  Roman  History, 
(London,  1855),  p.  107. 

2Pressens6,  Early  Tears  of  Christianity  (London, 
1879),  p.  4:24. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  107 

of  oil  ill  tlie  form  of  a  cross,  the  letting  down  a 
lighted  taper  until  the  melted  wax  had  flowed  in 
and  the  light  was  extinguished,  with  divers 
other  subsidiary  rites  and  multiplied  forms  of 
words. ^  The  water  thus  made  ^'lioly'^  of  itself 
regenerated  all  who  were  plunged  therein,  and 
nothino:  else  could.  Considerino;  the  strenjyth  of 
parental  love  and  piety,  and  the  preconceived 
unity  of  parent  and  child  in  the  popular  mind, 
as  heretofore  explained;  considering  also  the  new 
rod  of  power  thereby  lodged  in  priestly  hands — 
it  Ls  not  wonderful  that  the  baptism  of  infants 
entered  and  grew  apace. 

When  sprinkling  and  pouring  had  been  first 
introduceil  as  "  not  unlaAvful,"  says  Cave  in  his 
Primitive  Christianity,  it  "quickly  succeeded  in 
the  room  of  immersion,  because  the  tender  bodies 
of  most  infants  (the  only  persons  now  baptized) 
could  not  be  put  under  water  in  these  cold  cli- 
mates without  prejudice  to  health,  if  not  to  their 
lives."  ^  Wall  puts  it  a  little  more  carefully, 
thas :  "  It  being  allowed  to  weak  children  to  be 
baptized  by  affusion,  many  fond  ladies  and  gen- 
tlemen first,  and  then  by  degrees  the  common 
people,  would  obtain  the  favor  of  the  priest  to 
have  their  children  pass  for  weak,"  and  so  escape 

'  Cf.  Cowles  in  Bih.  Sac,  vol.  XXXIII.,  p.  426. 
^Primitive  Christianity,  p.  156. 


108         TUE   MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

dipping.^  It  is  noticeable  that  immersion  did 
not  at  once  sink  into  sprinkling.  "In  1645," 
says  Wall,  "  when  dipping  ceased,  there  was  no 
sprinkling,  but  pouring  only."  He  quotes  Vas- 
quez  as  saying  that  "sprinkling  (as  compared 
with  pouring)  cannot  be  practised  without  sin."  ^ 
How  sprinkling  itself  first  got  a  footing  as  bap- 
tism is  not  clear.  Exorcism,  which  always 
accompanied  baptism  in  the  early  church,  in- 
volved the  sprinkling  of  holy  water.  It  is  quite 
possible,  as  has  been  maintained  by  some,  ^  that 
this  was  afterwards  confounded  Avith  baptism; 
and  that  the  custom  of  sprinkling  to-day  is  the 
"survival"  of  a  superstitious  charm  to  drive 
away  the  Devil:  which  it  were  to  be  devoutly 
wished,  though  quite  unlikely,  that  it  may  do. 

The  conclusion  is  obvious.  No  antiquity, 
however  hoary,  can  change  earthly  things  to 
heavenly.  No  silence  of  Scripture,  however 
profound,  can  be  taken  as  a  license  for  the  intru- 
sion of  human  device  into  rites  that  are  divine: 
and  such  intrusion  can  bring  only  evil.  Man, 
powerless  to  create,  is  mighty  to  destroy.  Even 
in  the  Apostles' time  the  "mystery  of  lawless- 
ness" had  begun  to  work,  and  the  sanction  of 

1  History  of  Infant  Baptism,  p.  717. 
2/6.,  p.  719. 
8  /6.,  p.  723. 


THE  MOULD   OF  DOCTRIIfE.  109 

the  Fathers  is  weaker  still.  There  is  "but  one 
lawgiver'^ — not  Wesley,  nor  Calvin,  nor  Augus- 
tine, nor  Cyprian,  nor  even  Paul,  but  Christ  the 
L  )rd.     "  What  he  saith  unto  you,  do  it/' 


CHAPTER  \LL 

BAPTISM  AND  THE  NEW  BIRTH— RESULTS  OF 
PERVERSION. 

RESULTS,  in  history  and  nature,  are  often 
remote  from,  di^^proportionate  to,  and  in 
themselves  unlike,  their  causes.  The  links  that 
bind  them  are  likewise  frequently  delicate  and 
obscure.  It  may  easily  happen,  therefore,  that 
the  suggestion  of  such  intimacy  of  relation  will 
at  first  awaken  a  sense  of  surprise,  or  even  of 
incredulity — the  connection,  though  real,  not  be- 
ing at  once  obvious.  Nothing  could  perhaps 
seem  more  incongruous  than  the  attributing  the 
local  persistence  of  red  clover,  by  Mr.  Darwin, 
to  the  presence  of  cats.  ^  But  the  absurdity  dis- 
appears when  we  are  reminded  that  the  prolonged 
lite  of  the  clover  depends  on  its  fertilization  by 
the  humble  bee;  that  the  bee  cannot  survive  the 
destruction  of  its  comb  and  nest,  and  that  these, 
which  the  mice  would  destroy,  the  cats,  by  ex- 
terminating the  mice,  protect.  Thus  often  a 
most  delicate  thread  of  connected  circumstance 

^  Origin  of  Species  (New  York,  1883),  p.  57. 
110 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.    '    111 

once  grasped  will  lead  us  to  the  centre  of  the 
labyrinth,  and  change  our  embarrassment  to  sur- 
prise. 

Doubtless  the  connection  of  cats  with  clover 
will  seem  to  the  casual  observer  quite  as  de- 
monstrable as  that,  for  instance,  of  a  perverted 
baptism  with  the  current  evolution  philosophy. 
Nevertheless,  a  patient  fumbling  among  the  ad- 
jacent facts  may  touch  a  clew  leading  to  the 
revelation  of  a  real  kinship. 

THE   TESTIMONY   OF   THOLUCK. 

Nowhere  has  the  grosser  Evolutionism  found 
a  more  congenial  air  or  a  better  prepared  soil 
than  in  the  field  that  Luther  ploughed.  Indeed, 
so  rampant  has  been  the  growth  of  thorns  and  so 
abundant  the  crop  of  tares  in  that  region  since 
his  day,  as  to  suggest  that  the  '^ enemy''  may  in- 
sidiouf^ly  have  broken  off  the  point  of  his  plough, 
so  that  it  did  not  go  deep  enough,  or  thrust  some 
tares  into  the  seed-bag  while  he  was  still  sowing. 
According  to  Dr.  Charles  Hodge,^  "in  the  com- 
mon Protestant  theory,  no  judgment  is  expressed 
or  implied  by  the  church,  in  receiving  any  one, 
as  to  the  fact  of  his  regeneration,"  for  it  is  "not 
the  purpose  of  God  that  the  visible  church  on 
earth  should  consist  exclusively  of  the  regenerate.'^ 

^  Systematic  Theology,  vol.  III.,  p.  545. 


112         THE  MOULD   OF  DOCTRTNE, 

In  proof  of  this  he  cites  the  parable  of  the 
"^vheat  and  tares/'  But  if,  as  he  maintains,  the 
"fiekV  in  that  parable  be  the  church,  and  the 
"tares"  the  unregenerate,  the  scope  of  the  Mas- 
ter's directions  to  his  servants  is  somewhat 
enlarged  by  implication.  For  they  were  only 
forbidden  to  usurp  the  "  angels' "  functions  by 
"pulling  up"  the  tares,  but  it  seems  they  may 
without  hinderance  take  on  them  the  "enemy's'^ 
Avork  of  planting  them.  How  thoroughly  this 
has  been  done  in  Lutheran  Germany  let  the  ven- 
erable Professor  Tholuck  tell.  "  I  regret  nothing 
so  much,"  said  he  to  Joseph  Cook,^  "as  that  the 
line  of  demarcation  between  the  church  and  the 
world  which  Jonathan  Edwards  and  Whitefield 
drew  so  deeply  in  the  mind  of  New-England  is 
almost  unknown,  not  to  the  theological  doctrines, 
but  to  the  ecclesiastical  forms  of  Germany.  With 
us  confirmation  is  compulsory.  Children  of  un- 
believing as  well  as  of  believing  families  must  at 
an  early  age  be  baptized  and  profess  faith  in 
the  Father,  Son,  and  Holy  Ghost.  Without  a 
certificate  of  confirmation  in  some  Church,  em- 
ployment cannot  be  la\\^ully  obtained.  After 
confirmation,  the  religious  standing  is  assumed  to 
be  Christian :  after  that,  we  are  all  church  mem- 
bers. Thus  it  happens  that  in  our  State  Church 
1  Bih.  Sac,  vol.  XXXII.,  p.  740. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  113 

the  ronverted  and  unconverted  are  mixed  pell- 
mell  together/'  In  a  note  Mr.  Cook  adds  that  "  in 
a  few  cities  of  North  Germany  infamous  licenses 
were  granted  women  for  an  infamous  purpose, 
but  only  on  exhibition  of  a  certificate  of  conjirm- 
ation."  Of  the  analogous  evil  results  of  infant 
bai)tism  in  New-England,  Mr.  Joseph  Cook,  who 
is  himself  a  Congregationalist,  has  borne  the  most 
courageous  and  trenchant  testimony.  It  led,  (he 
says  in  substance,  in  his  lectures  on  "Qrthodoxi//')^ 
to  the  "half-way  covenant,"  and  that  to  skepti- 
cism. He  affirms,  on  the  authority  of  Tracy, 
that  all  the  churches  not  following  Edwards  and 
Whitefield  in  their  revolt  against  unregenerate 
church-membership  became  Unitarian.^  Infant 
baptism,  imported  from  the  Old  World,  laid  the 
foundation  of  a  State  Church  in  New-Eno-land. 
Roger  Williams,  he  adds,  protested  that  it  would 
lead  to  the  secularization  of  church-membership; 
which  it  in  fact  did,  and  out  of  this  secularization 
grew  the  weakness  of  New-England  against 
French    infidelity.^ 

UNITARIAXISM    AND    ITS   ORIGIN. 

The  history  of  New  England  Unitarianism  is 
doubtless  familiar,  but  it  is  perhaps  not  so  well 
known   that  infant  bai)tism  was  responsible  for 

1  p.  280.  2  p_  281.  3  pp.  271,  272,  281. 

II 


114  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

its  origination,  as  well  as  its  modern  revival. 
The  name  itself,  according  to  Bodd,  one  of  their 
early  historians,  was  not  derived  from  antipathy 
to  the  doctrine  of  the  Trinity  as  their  character- 
istic tenet,  but  from  the  union  of  all  parties 
(including  the  Orthodox)  at  their  instance,  in  a 
bond  of  religious  toleration,  under  the  name  of 
uniti  or  unitarii.  When  the  rest  receded  from 
this,  the  name  attached  to  them  alone.^  The 
first  propounder  of  Unitarianism,  says  Eees,  was 
Cellarius.  In  the  beginning  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  he  was  appointed  by  the  Reformers  to 
defend  infant  baptism  against  the  Anabaptist 
leaders.  Being  overpowered  by  their  arguments, 
he  repudiated  infant  baptism  not  only,  but  went 
further  and  denied  the  Trinity.  That  this  was 
no  legitimate  outgrowth  of  Anabaptism  itself, 
however,  is  historically  certain;  for  in  1546 
Adam  Pastor  was  excluded  from  their  body  for 
holding  Unitarian  views.^  But  the  intensity  of 
the  revulsion,  which  led  to  the  supreme  exalta- 
tion of  reason,  and  the  consequent  rejection  of 
the  mystery  of  the  Trinity,  is  not  inexplicable 
when  we  remember  to  Avhat  stultiloquence  the 
Keformers   had   descended   in  justifying   infant 

1  Rees,  Bacovi'an  Catechism  (London,  1818),  Preface 
IV. 
2/6..  VII. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  115 

baj)tism.  Luther  said,  for  instance,  as  follows: 
"The  Anabaptists  pretend  that  children,  not  as 
yet  having  reason,  ought  not  to  receive  bap- 
tism. 1  answer  that  reason  in  no  way  con- 
tributes to  faith.  Nay,  in  that  children  are 
destitute  of  reason,  they  are  all  the  more  fit  and 
proper  recipients  of  baptism.  For  reason  is  the 
greatest  enemy  that  faith  hath.  .  .  Faith  comes 
of  the  word  of  God,  when  this  is  heard :  little 
children  hear  that  word  when  they  receive  bap- 
tism, and  therewith  they  receive  faith."*  Bap- 
tism having  been  thus  reduced  to  magic,  and 
f  lith,  for  its  sake,  identified  with  unreason,  the 
Unitarians  rejected  both.  Their  Racovian  Cate- 
chism  is  largely  devoted  to  an  arraignment  of 
infant  baptism  and  sprinkling  as  unscriptural — 
one  of  the  most  complete  anywhere  to  be  found.^ 

Luther's  great  inconsistency. 

It  is  the  more  remarkable  that  Luther  did  not 
revolt  against  infant  baptism,  when  we  remember 
irs  sharp  antipathy  to  Papal  usurpation,  and 
also  that  the  immediate  occasion  of  the  Reforma- 
tion was  the  sale  of  indulgences.  For  infant 
baptism  was  manifestly,  as  Dean  Mil  man  terms 
it,  one  of  the  "strong  foundations  of  sacerdotal 

'  Lxfher's  Table  Talk  (Philadelphia,  1868).  p.  202. 
2Recp,  Racovian  Catechism,  p.*  253,  seq. 


116         THE  MOULD    OF  BOCTRINE. 

power;" ^  and  the  sale  of  Indulgences  was  its 
direct  outgrowth.  For  the  very  notion  of  indul- 
gence, with  that  of  penance  and  purgatory, 
depends  on  the  assumed  loss  of  baptismal  grace 
by  after-lapse  into  sin,  the  eifects  of  which  w^re 
thus  to  be  averted.  But  the  idea  of  regenerating 
virtue  in  baptism,  again,  arose,  as  we  have  seen, 
in  connection  with  infant  baptism,  inferentially 
interpreted  as  made  efficacious  by  ^Uransele- 
mentation  "  of  the  water  (an  idea  still  surviving 
in  the  ritual  of  the  English  and  the  Methodist 
Churches  in  the  prayer  that  ^^  this  water  may  be 
sanctified,"  etc.)  "  Because  the  taint  of  our  birth 
is  purified  by  baptism,"  says  Origen,  "therefore 
infants  are  baptized."  It  is  obvious  that  the 
damnation  of  infants  not  so  purified,  logically 
follows,  even  were  it  not  distinctly  asserted  by 
the  Fathers,  as  it  was.  Even  good  Dr.  Emmons, 
in  a  later  day,  only  softened  this  inevitable 
corollary  by  hopefully  surmising,  with  Dr. Watts, 
that  they  might  be  annihilated.^  They  are  still 
ominously  excluded  by  the  English  Church  from 
burial  in  consecrated  ground.  Infant  com- 
munion was  also  early  practised ;  it  being  con- 
sistently held,  with  Augustine,  that  mystic  food 

^History  of  Latin  Christianity,  (London,  1857),  vol. 
III.,  p.  277. 
2  Works,  vol.  II.,  p.  G51. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  117 

was  as  essential  to  the  maintenance  as  mystic 
birth  to  the  inception  of  spiritual  life.^ 

Thus  through  the  misinterpretation  and  mis- 
application of  baptism  had  faith  been  changed  to 
superstition,  and  the  shadow  of  priestly  power 
been  projected  over  the  whole  range  of  life  from 
the  cradle  to  the  grave,  and  even  into  the  in- 
visible beyond.  Claiming  to  hold  the  "keys  of 
heaven"  through  the  sacraments,  the  priesthood 
had  tyrannically  gone  on  to  "bind  heavy  bur- 
dens and  grievous  to  be  borne,  and  lay  them  on 
men's  shoulders,"  which  they  themselves  would 
not  "  move  with  one  of  their  iiuo^ers." 

Out  of  this  region  of  tradition,  with  its  hidden 
reefs,  disordered  compasses,  and  baffling  winds, 
Luther  set  sail  into  the  open  sea  of  God's  word, 
laying  a  straight  course  along  the  line  of  "justi- 
fication by  faith  alone."  But  unhappily,  reaching 
the  subject  of  baptism,  he  at  length  fell  "into  a 
place  where  two  seas  met" — and  from  that  ship- 
wreck, only  "  on  boards  and  broken  pieces  of  the 
ship"  have  men  since  "escaped  safe  to  land." 
To  drop  the  figure,  Luther  left  his  people  a 
priceless  legacy  in  an  honestly-translated  Scrip- 
ture, in  the  assertion  of  its  sole  authority,  and  in 
the  doctrine  that  faith  alone  justifies.  But  to 
this   last   and  vital  doctrine  he  unhappily  ap- 

'  Ecclesia.,  Second  Series,  p.  59. 


118         TEE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE, 

pendcd,  as  the  only  recourse  for  the  defence  of 
infant  baptism,  the  neutralizing  qualification, 
"but  baptism  alone  regenerates."  Thus  divorc- 
ing baptism  from  faith,  and  regeneration  from 
justification,  he  submitted  to  his  critical  and 
sagacious  countrymen  a  conception  of  Christian 
doctrine  hopelessly  paradoxical.  We  must  obey 
the  Bible  against  tradition,  he  said:  and  yet  he 
endorsed  sprinkling  as  substituted  by  tradition, 
for  immersion  as  commanded  (according  to  his 
own  translation)  in  the  Bible.  He  insisted  that 
the  people  must  read  the  Bible  for  themselves, 
because  intelligence  is  the  basis  of  faith:  yet 
contended  that  the  faith  of  infants  is  superior 
because  unintelligent.  He  argued  that  salvation 
is  inward  and  not  outward,  and  therefore  beyond 
priestly  control:  yet  by  hanging  regeneration 
upon  baptism  made  the  inward  the  creature  of 
the  outward,  and  still  dependent  on  another's 
whim.  The  moulding  power  of  a  visible  act 
upon  thought  and  its  expression  is  manifest  in 
the  fact  that  the  uniform  connection  of  Luther's 
w^ord  taufeUj  to  dip,  with  the  practice  of  sprink- 
ling, has  in  fact  gradually  subverted  the  meaning 
of  the  Avord  itself.  So  that  the  American  Bible 
Society  maintains  its  consistency  in  publishing 
Luther's  translation  including  that  word,  because 
it  has  now  come  to  mean  "sprinkle."     If  now 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTIIIJS'E.  119 

the  Rationalist  claims  Luther's  authority  for  the 
proposition  that  Christianity  demands  the  re- 
nunciation of  reason  as  the  condition  of  faith,  it 
will  not  be  easy  to  answer  him.  If,  finally, 
the  Naturalistic  Evolutionist  suggest  that  the 
"theory  of  the  potency  of  every  form  of  life  in 
matter"  ought  not  to  seem  novel  or  incredible 
to  one  who  already  accepts  the  idea  of  spiritual 
birth  as  the  product  of  material  baptism,  it  may 
at  least  freshen  our  curiosity  concerning  the 
whole  matter,  and  suggest  a  more  careful  re- 
vision of  the  words  of  Christ  and  the  signifi- 
cance of  his  ordinance  in  this  connection. 

SCRIPTURAL   BAPTISM   AND   THE   NEW   BIRTH. 

That  ordinance,  as  we  have  seen,  in  Paul's 
conception  symbolically  and  visibly  reenacts  the 
spiritual  transaction  which  Christ  calls  the  new 
birth.  The  Scriptural  primacy  and  fertility  of 
that  idea  have  been  already  insisted  on.  "  It  is," 
says  Professor  Austin  Phelps,  "  one  of  the  con- 
strudive  ideas  of  inspiration,  which  are  not  so 
much  here  or  there  as  everywhere.  It  is  perva- 
sive, like  the  life  blood  in  the  body.  It  is  lilvc  ca- 
loric in  the  globe."  ^  The  Old  Testament  begins 
with  "the  book  of  births" — speaking  significantly 
of  the  "  generations  of  the  heavens  and  the  eartli," 

»  The  Xew  Birth  (Boston,  1867),  p.  21. 


120  TUE  MOULD    OF  DOCTMINE. 

and  "of  man" — and  of  the  "bringing  forth"  by 
the  earth  and  the  waters,  of  grass,  herb,  and  living 
creature.  The  New  Testament  begins  with  the 
"generation  of  Jesus  Christ,"  which  although 
*^  from  David  according  to  the  flesh "  and  so  in 
the  old  order,  was  likewise  a  "new  birth" — a 
birth  "from  above"— a  birth  of  "the  Spirit." 
His  discourse  with  Nicodemus  pivots  itself  on  the 
same  idea,  on  which  also  the  whole  New  Testa- 
ment henceforth  turns. 

It  is  a  notable  instance  of  the  perverse  industry 
with  which  Christ's  words  have  been  twisted 
from  their  aim,  that  one  verse  (John  iii.  5,)  of  this 
most  prescient  discourse,  has  not  only  been  robbed 
of  its  deep  suggestiveness,  but  actually  so  in- 
verted as  to  seem  to  defend  the  very  idea  it  was 
meant  to  destroy,  For,  as  Wall  says,  all  the 
ancient  Christians  understand  it  to  refer  to  bap- 
tism, Calvin  being  the  first  to  deny  it.  By 
which  denial,  adds  Wall,  he  has  done  "ten  times 
more  prejudice"  to  infant  baptisni  (involving,  as 
it  must,  baptismal  regeneration)  than  by  "all  his 
new  hypotheses  and  arguments^"  the  Baptists 
having  already  seized  upon  it  as  confirn^ing  their 
views.^ 

But  that  regeneration  is,  in  any  case,  inde- 
pendent of  baptism,  is  distinctly  taught  in  the 
1  Historu  of  Infant  Baptism,  pp.  ool,  552. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  121 

same  chapter  (verse  36).  Surely  he  that  "hath 
everlasting  life"  is  regenerate,  and  this  is  affirmed 
of  him  "that  believeth/'  As  to  the  verse  itself 
it  may  be  incidentally  remarked  that,  the  article 
being  absent,  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  Holy 
Spirit  is  here  referred  to.  In  the  Armenian  and 
many  earlier  versions,  the  passage  reads  literally, 
"of  water  and  of  spirit"^ — the  preposition  be- 
coming thus  generic,  and  perhaps  alluding  to 
certain  most  significant  facts  in  the  physical 
order,  and  not  to  baptism  at  all.  But  there  is 
no  room  to  enlarge  upon  or  even  to  explain 
this  hint. 

What  is  unmistakably  to  the  purpose  is  the 
fact  that  our  Lord's  whole  discourse  is  manifestly 
aimed,  not  to  encourage,  but  to  beat  down  the 
too  gross  and  mechanical  notions  of  Nicodemus. 
His  first  w^ord  was  anti-materialistic.  It  in- 
sisted on  a  birth  "from  above,"  impliedly  as 
asrainst  one  from  beneath.  In  answer  to  Nico- 
demus'  obtuse  suggestion  of  a  possible  allusion 
to  earthly  rebirth  he  makes  the  antithesis  still 
more  distinct,  uttering  a  protest  which  cannot  be 
too  deeply  pondered  in  our  day  against  the  pos- 
sible evolution  of  the  spiritual  out  of  the  mate- 

iSo  in  Syriac,  Slavonic,  Gothic,  Anglo-Saxon,  Persian, 
etc.  See  Malan,  on  Gospel  of  John  (London,  1865),  Note, 
p.  42. 


122         IRE  MOULD    OF  VOC TRINE. 

rial.  "That  which  is  born  of  the  flesh  is  flesh; 
and  that  which  is  born  of  the  Spirit  is  spirit." 
To  suppose  that  the  intervening  verse  was  meant 
to  teacli  precisely  the  opposite,  and  to  press  up(jn 
Nicodemus  a  formalism  which  was  already  a  snare 
to  him,  would  be  absurd.  It  does  not  identify, 
but  distinguishes,  water-birth  and  spirit-birth; 
and  makes  the  latter  not  dependent  on,  but  inde- 
pendent of,  the  former,  and  urges  it  as  the  one 
newly  revealed  and  essential  necessity. 

EVOLUTIOX   FALLACIES    ANTICIPATED. 

This  sharply  defined  parting  off  of  the  mate- 
rial from  the  spiritual  realm,  and  the  assertion 
of  the  powerlessness  of  the  lower  to  transcend 
its  limits,  are  suggestive  in  many  directions. 
They  point  back  to  that  signal  break  in  the 
order  of  creation  when  it  reaches  man,  as  re- 
corded in  Genesis.  Though  "formed,'^  like  the 
rest  of  the  animal  creation,  "  from  the  dust  of 
the  ground,"  that  is,  from  beneath,  he  alone  re- 
ceived from  above  the  breath  of  God,  and 
became  thereby  a  "new  creature."  Of  whom 
Professor  Huxley  says,  "Whether  from  them 
(that  is.  the  animal  creation)  or  not,  he  is  not 
assuredly  of  them,"  "being  the  only  consciously 
intelligent  denizen  of  the  world.'  ^  We  remera- 
1  Evidence  of  3fan's  Place  m  Ncdure,  p.  110. 


TUE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRTXE.  123 

ber  likewise  that  unique  element  in  the  Incarna- 
tion which  severed  it  from  all  anterior  human 
births:  by  virtue  of  which  Jesus  said  to  the 
Jews,  "Ye  are  from  beneath,  I  am  from  above." 
It  is  not  accidental,  therefore,  but  by  logical  con- 
sequence, that  a  rejection  of  the  doctrine  of 
regeneration  is  usually  accompanied  by  a  denial 
of  the  Incarnation  and  the  Deity  of  Christ. 
Not  less  significant  is  PauFs  claim  of  authority 
for  his  words  as  emanating,  not  from  a  superior 
human,  but  from  a  superhuman  source — a  differ- 
ence of  kind,  and  not  of  degree  only:  for  he 
declared  himself  "  an  apostle,  not  of  men,  neither 
by  man,  but  by  Jesus  Christ,  and  God  the 
Father,  who  raised  him  from  the  dead.'^  Thus 
carefully  are  the  discrete  lines  between  the 
"flesh"  and  the  "spirit,"  and  their  respective 
possibilities  emphasized  in  Scripture.  The  bar- 
riers are  thus  set  against  the  intrusion  of  any 
"Monistic"  theory  in  the  interpretation  of 
Christianity  or  life,  by  which  the  boundaries  of 
Genius  and  Inspiration,  Natural  and  Supernatu- 
ral, Matter  and  Force,  Body  and  Spirit,  and  the 
like,  may  tend  to  be  effaced;  the  lines  of  the 
symmetric  universe  melting  thus  into  the  chaotic 
haze  of  Agnosticism. 

Again,  great  emphasis  is  laid  in  Scripture  on 
the  transitional  element  in  birth.      "Flesh''  can- 


124         TUE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

not  be  developed,  or  disciplined,  or  reconstructed 
into  "  spirit."  For  birth  is  not  to  be  confounded 
with  growth:  the  latter  is  a  process,  protracted, 
continuous,  uniform,  incomplete:  the  former  is  a 
transaction,  sudden,  interruptive,  spasmodic,  com- 
plete. The  "old  man"  must  die  that  the  "new 
man"  may  be  born.  But  death  is  not  annihila- 
tion, nor  birth  creation,  of  the  mechanism  of 
life.  The  babe  dies  as  to  the  foetal,  that  it  may- 
enter  ihe  atmospheric,  life:  this  necessitates  no 
modification  of  structure,  but  only  a  transfer  of 
the  dynamic  centre  of  vitality.  The  "new 
creature"  in  Christ  is  simply  one  the  gravitative 
centre  of  whose  life  has  been  changed  from  the 
"flesh"  to  the  "spirit." 

The  great  truth  which  feeds  the  mills  of  phil- 
osophy to-day  with  much  grain  and  more  chaif, 
and  from  which  most  heterogeneous  grists  are 
being  ground,  lies  close  by.  It  is  that  the  secret 
of  the  universal  order  is  vital,  not  mechanical; 
anl  that  a  "new  thing"  can  arrive  upon  the 
earth  only  through  the  gateway  of  birtJi. 

"We  are  apt  to  speak  vaguely  sometimes," 
says  Thoreau,  "as  if  a  divine  life  were  to  be 
grafted  onto  or  built  over  this  present  as  a 
suitable  foundation.  This  might  do  if  we  could 
so  build  our  own  old  life  as  to  exclude  from  it 
all  the  warmth  of  our  affection,  and  addle  it,  as 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  125 

the  thrush  builds  over  the  cuckoo's  ^^'^  and  lays 
her  own  atop,  and  hatches  only  that;  but  the 
fact  is — so  there  is  the  partition — we  hatch  them 
both,  and  the  cuckoo's  always  by  a  day  first,  and 
that  young  bird  crowds  the  young  thrashes  out 
of  the  nest.  No!  destroy  the  cuckoo's  ^^^  or 
build  a  new  nest."  ^ 

There  is  still  another  significant  element  in 
this  connection,  vividly  illustrated,  as  are  those 
already  noticed,  in  the  resurrection  and  equally 
in  baptism,  to  which  Paul  refers  as  its  analogue. 
It  is  that  the  new  birth  is  not  self-wrought. 
Christ's  resurrection  power  did  not  issue  from 
his  dead  body,  much  less  from  the  grave — he 
"was  raised"  by  power  from  above.  The  im- 
mersed believer  does  not  resume  life  of  himself; 
he  too  "is  raised"  by  a  lifting  hand.  The  old 
schoolmen  were  not  wholly  ignorant  of  or  in- 
different to  that  series  of  phenomena  which  un- 
derlie the  modern  theoiy  of  evolution.  They 
preferred,  however,  the  more  expressive  term 
eduction,  as  indicating  a  power  leading  from 
before,  rather  than  pushing  from  behind.  The 
word  "evolution"  Is  logically  colorless  in  itself. 
It  becomes  theistic  or  atheistic  according  as  it 
recognizes  the  "hand  reaching  through  nature 
moulding  man,"    or  reverts  to  the  old  Lucretian 

^  Letters,  (Boston,  1865),  p.  42 


126         TEE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

thesis  that  "Nature  is  able  to  produce  all  things 
of  herself,  without  the  intervention  of  the  gods." 
Thus,  in  the  nineteenth  century  of  research 
and  speculation,  the  world  finds  itself  sitting 
oi)posite  the  same  central  idea  with  which  our 
Lord  taught  men  to  begin  in  the  first.  That 
primary  ordinance,  which  Christ  provided  as 
the  corner-stone  of  organization  in  his  church, 
into  Avhich  the  true  doctrine  of  the  new  birth 
w^as  visibly  cut,  has  been  marred,  defaced,  and 
thrust  aside  by  the  builders,  until  the  idea  itself 
has  been  perverted,  obscured,  or  lost.  In  its 
stead  therefore  comes  the  specious  counterfeit:  a 
religion  whose  Bible  is  "evolved"  out  of  human 
literature;  its  Christ  out  of  social  progress  or  a 
mythic  tendency;  and  its  inner  life  out  of 
culture,  inheritance,  or  good  nature;  and  a 
science  with  the  legend,  "  That  which  is  born  of 
the  flesh  is  spirit."  "Ye  must  be  born  from 
below." 


CHAPTER  VIII. 

BAPTISM  AND  LOYALTY— THE  HISTORIC  IDEA. 

rriHERE  is  a  great  future  for  you  Baptists," 
JL  once  said  Neander.  The  prophecy  will  in 
many  quarters  be  met  only  with  a  shrug  of  sur- 
prised incredulity.  Perhaps  it  may  kindle  a 
gentle  smile  of  derision  even  upon  the  features 
of  one  whose 

"  Arched  brow  prilled  o'er  his  eyes 
With  solemn  proof  proclaims  him  wise  "  ^ 

— a  mute  and  modest  confession  of  his  own  con- 
sciously superior  profundity  as  contrasted  with 
the  superficiality  of  the  simple-minded  old 
German.  For  he  has  penetration  enough  to 
assure  himself  that  the  Baptist  function  is  (as  has 
been  conspicuously  published  not  very  long  ago) 
the  "prolonging  a  conscientious  and  useless  con- 
troversy" over  "not  even  an  ordinance,  but  the 
external  method  of  its  administration "  ^ — (what 
the  internal  method  might  be  does  not  appear) — 

i  Churchill. 

'  H.  W.  Beccher,  Life  of  the  Christ  vol.  L,  p.  226. 

127 


128         THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTUIKE. 

thus  figliting  for  ^^an  externality  of  an  extern- 
ality/' and  becoming  the  elect  apostle  of  formal- 
ism, stupidity,  and  self-Avill.  He  is  further 
confident  that  this  eccentric  "externality''  consti- 
tutes, as  the  very  name  Baptist  implies,  his  whole 
theological  stock  in  trade:  that  it  is  his  shibboleth 
for  the  gate  of  heaven,  his  sermonic  "  harp  of  a 
thousand  strings,"  his  compendious  religion.  Is 
he  not,  therefore,  rather  an  anachrc)nism — a  be- 
lated mediaeval  ghost  who  must  soon  retire  before 
the  sun? 

It  may  be  deferentially  suggested  to  such  a 
critic,  in  passing,  that  as  a  criterion  of  character 
or  doctrine  no  "externality  of  an  externality" 
is  more  likely  to  be  deluding  than  a  name. 
Judged  solely  by  that  standard,  the  "Reformed" 
people  ought  once  to  have  been  dissolute,  the 
"  Methodists "  ought  to  be  characteristically  prim 
and  cold-blooded,  and  the  "  Congregationalists " 
and  "Sabbatarians"  ought  to  be  recognized  as 
having  a  peculiar  purchase  on  the  better  land, 
because  there  alone  ^^congregations  ne'er  break 
up  and  Sabbaths  have  no  end." 

The  profundity  of  the  logic  which  gauges  the 
breadth  of  the  issue  by  the  size  of  its  occasion — 
as  if  the  value  and  dimensions  of  an  estate  were 
dependent  on  the  acreage  of  the  parchment  con- 
veying it — is   also  worthy  of  a  moment's  gaze. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  129 

The  question  of  baptism,  it  is  said,  is  only  one 
of  mensuration — a  little  more  water,  or  a  little 
less — and  pertinacity  about  such  a  trifle  reduces 
Christianity  itself  to  a  trifle.  By  the  same 
rule,  American  liberty  is  "reduced"  to  the 
right  to  use  unstamped  paper,  about  whic^h 
"trifle''  our  fathers  were  somewhat  perverse; 
Mohammedanism  was  by  the  Sepoy  rebellion 
revealed  to  be  only  an  aversion  for  greased  car- 
tridges; and  Paul's  religion  was  summed  up  in 
an  obstinate  and  somewhat  paradoxical  refusal 
to  circumcise  Titus,  while  consenting  to  circum- 
cise Timothy. 

In  fact,  great  doors  usually  swing  on  small 
hinges.  The  pass  of  Thermopylae  may  be 
narrow,  but  it  cradled  and  kept  the  life  of 
Greece.  The  great  battles  of  the  world  have 
grown  out  of  circumstances  often  grotesquely 
diminutive  and  commonplace,  such  as  the  refusal 
to  doff  a  cap,  or  the  belching  out  of  an  impet- 
uous word;  but  the  results  and  the  principles 
involved  have  not  been  therefore  insignificant. 
These  battles,  moreover,  however  large  the 
territory  involved,  have  been  fought,  not  over 
broad  areiis  chiefly,  but  along  narrow  border 
lines.  The  engineer  does  not  much  dread  a 
locomotive  leap  to  the  track  ten  feet  away,  but 
he  is  cautious  of  the  switch  points. 
I 


130         THE  MOULD   OF  DOCTRINE. 

THE   GROUND  OF   NEANDER'S   SAYING. 

But  we  climb  again  to  Neander.  He  was  not 
a  Baptist.  He  was  not  a  novice,  nor  an  en- 
thusiast, but  a  ripened  and  sedate  student  and 
observer.  He  saw  things,  not  under  the  dazzling 
glare  of  the  passing  noon,  but  in  the  calm  light 
of  the  centuries.  His  utterances  were  not  those 
of  the  flippant  paragrapher,  but  of  the  cautious 
and  philosophic  historian,  and  are  entitled  there- 
fore to  a  respectful  hearing  and  pondering. 
Neander  dwelt  in  a  time  and  place  of  peculiar 
political  and  intellectual  effervescence  and  tran- 
sition. The  ancient  despotism  in  Church  and 
State  had  drifted  (to  borrow  a  striking  figure 
from  Froude)  like  icebergs  into  a  warmer  sea, 
where,  steadily  melting  away  beneath,  they  must 
soon  topple  headlong  and  be  dissolved.  The 
"signs  of  the  times'^  augured  the  speedy  mastery 
of  that  principle  which  his  countryman  Ger- 
vinus  summarized^  as  ^'freedom,  or  the  right  to 
pay  submission  to  nothing  but  law :  and  equality, 
the  duty  of  all  alike  to  obey  one  and  the  same 
law."  In  all  this  Neander  could  but  recognize 
a  divine  pressure  on  the  individual  soul,  causing 
it  to  break  out  of  its  cerements:   he  could  but 

*  Fntrodiiction  to  History  of  the  Nineteenth  Century, 
p.  67. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.         131 

hear  a  divine  voice  saying  to  men,  "Loose  him 
and  let  him  go." 

Equally  portentous  were  the  phenomena  on  the 
intellectual  side.  Enlarged  area,  multiplied  mate- 
rial, improved  apparatus,  sharpened  methods,  had 
made  the  critical  school  exigent  and  audacious. 
Nothing  was  too  recondite,  too  fixed,  too  an- 
cient, too  sacred,  for  their  prying  and  ransack- 
ing spirit.  On  every  side  the  iconoclastic  hammer 
was  ringing,  the  hungry  white-hot  fm*nace  was 
bellowing,  and  eager  pincers  feeding  it  with 
institutions,  customs,  traditions,  documents,  to  be 
tested  and  refined  or  consumed.  Nor  was  this 
inexplicable.  No  sooner  was  the  daughter  of 
Jairus  aroused  than  it  was  commanded  that 
'^something  should  be  given  her  to  eat."  The 
awakened  soul  is  always  hungry.  He  who  is 
set  free  to  act  must  also  be  set  free  to  inquire, 
that  he  may  know  how  to  act.  One  of  the 
most  stirring  trumpet-calls  of  the  Reformation 
was  that  sentence  of  Luther's,  in  a  letter  prefixed 
to  his  Treatise  on  Chridlan  Liberty,  wherein  he 
repudiated  restraint  in  interpreting  the  word  of 
God,  which,  inculcating  liberty,  must  be  itself 
free.  This  sentence,  says  Roscoe,^  exploded 
Leo's  Bull  of  Excommunication  against  him. 
Doubtless  it  did  much  more.  It  caused  that 
1  Li/e  of  Leo  X.  (Bohn,  1847),  vol.  II.,  p.  214. 


132         THE  MOULD   OF  DOCTRINE, 

spark  to  be  dropped  in  the  ready  tinder,  and  the 
Cyclopean  furnace  to  be  kindled  into  which  the 
Pope  himself,  with  his  bull,  his  tiara,  and  all  his 
belongings  must  go  beside  the  word  of  God,  to 
be  "tried  by  fire."  Neander  believed  with 
David  that  already  "  the  words  of  the  Lord  are 
pure  words:  as  silver  tried  in  a  furnace  of 
earth,  purified  seven  times."  He  could  not 
doubt,  therefore,  that  while  human  incrustations 
must  crumble  and  waste  away  in  the  refining 
flame,  the  divine  word  itself  would  come  forth 
clean  and  lustrous. 

Luther's  prophecy  historically  realized. 

Out  of  the  conjoint  tendencies  of  his  time, 
therefore,  he  saw  a  principle  emerging  and  soon 
to  be  dominant,  viz.:  The  unfettered  word  for  the 
unfettered  soul.  But  this,  the  prophetic  idea  for 
the  coming  era,  he  found  to  be  the  identical  his- 
toric  idea  at  the  roots  of  that  movement  then 
and  still  contemptuously  stigmatized  in  his  own 
country  as  Anabaptist.  "The  origin  of  this 
sect,"  says  Professor  Butler,  of  the  Episcopal 
Church,^  "is  very  obscure.  The  name  was 
extended  to  persons  of  very  different  origin  and 
of  various  opinions."  "Some  came,"  he  adds, 
"from     the     Waldenses     and     Petrobrusians," 

1  Ecclesiastical  History  (Philadelphia,  1872),  p.  232. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  133 

"some"  were  "the  secret  disciples  of  Wiclif, 
Huss,  and  others."  "The  general  views  in 
which  they  agreed  were,  that  the  visible  church 
should  consist  only  of  holy  persons;  that  nothing 
of  human  device  should  be  admitted  into  its 
order  or  worship:  and  that  infants  were  not 
proper  subjects  of  baptism."  It  is  deeply  signi- 
ficant to  find  the  names  of  the  Waldenses,  Wiclif, 
and  Huss,  coupled  by  an  impartial  hand  with 
the  oris^in  of  this  movement  and  these  ideas. 
For  of  Peter  Waldo,  says  Mrs.  Ranyard,  ^  "  It 
is  certain  that  the  Christian  world  is  indebted  to 
him  for  the ^irs^  translation  of  parts  of  the  Scrip- 
tures into  a  modern  tongue,  after  the  Latin 
ceased  to  be  a  living  language.  .  .  .  The  prepa- 
ration of  their  (the  Waldensian)  pastors  for  the 
ministry  consisted  in  learning  by  heart  the  (tos- 
pels  of  Matthew  and  John,  all  the  Epistles,  and 
most  of  the  writings  of  David,  Solomon,  and 
the  prophets."  They  were  "  Biblical  Anti-Sacer- 
dotalists,"  says  Milman,^  whose  "great  strength 
was  in  the  vernacular  Scripture,"  who  denied 
"  all  sacraments,  except  Baptism  and  the  Eucha- 
rist," and  whose  martyrdom  was  for  "preaching 
without  authority."  To  this  "voice  crying  in 
the  wilderness"  more  than  three  hundred  years 

1  77ie  Book  and  its  Story  (Phila.,  1854),  pp.  124,  126. 

2  Latin  Christianity  (London,  1857),  vol.  lY.,  p.  98. 


134  TUE  MOULD    OF  DOGIRINE. 

before  Luther,  Bishop  Newton  attributes  these 
words:  "In  articles  of  faith,  the  authority  of  the 
Holy  Scripture  is  the  highest:  and  for  that 
reason  it  is  the  rule  of  judging:  so  that  what- 
soever agreeth  not  with  the  word  of  God  is  de- 
servedly to  be  rejected  and  avoided.  The  read- 
ing and  knowledge  of  the  Scripture  is  free  and 
necessary  for  all  men,  the  laity  as  well  as  the 
clergy.  Ceremonies  manifestly  hindering  the 
teaching  and  learning  of  the  word  are  diabolical 
inventions.'^  As  to  Wiclif,  it  is  scarcely  neces- 
sary to  be  reminded  that  he  was  for  the  four- 
teenth century  in  England  what  Waldo  had 
been  for  the  twelfth  on  the  Continent.  "He 
gave  the  whole  Bible  to  the  people,  he  gave  it 
without  note  or  comment,  and  he  was  the  first 
man  that  did  so.''  ^  Upon  him  the  friars  vented 
their  maledictions,  because  by  his  translation 
"the  gospel  pearl  was  cast  abroad  and  trodden 
under  foot  of  swine,  and  the  gospel  which  Christ 
had  given  to  be  kept  by  the  clergy  was  now 
made  forever  common  to  the  laity."  ^  John 
Huss  again  in  the  fifteenth  century,  and  in 
Bohemia,  was  the  champion  and  martyr  of 
Wiclif 's  doctrines;  among  them,  as  specified  and 
condemned  by  Pope  Pius  II.  pre-eminently  this: 

1  TJie  Book  and  Its  Story,  p.  134. 
2/&.,  p.  133. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  135 

that  "  every  one  hath  free  liberty  to  preach  the 
word  of  God/  Thus  was  the  torch  of  an  un- 
fettered word  passed  on  from  darkened  century 
to  century,  until  the  morning  dawn  of  the  Re- 
formation. 

FRilEDOM,    CIVIL   AND   INTELLECTUAL, 
DEMANDED. 

The  historic  connection  of  freedom  of  action 
with  the  uncovering  of  the  word  of  God  is  no 
less  manifest  than  that  of  freedom  of  inquiry. 
"  If  the  foundations  of  freedom  (that  is,  civil  free- 
dom) were  laid  in  religion,"  says  Gervinus,^ 
there  would  be  no  fear  concerning  its  progress. 
Machiavelli  was  aware  of  this  truth  when  he 
looked  for  a  fundamental  regeneration  of  the 
times  and  of  States  only  in  a  reform  of  the 
Church."  "In  Luther's  time,"  he  adds,^  "when 
the  first  foundations  of  liberty  were  only  in  the 
act  of  being  laid,  the  scheme  for  the  whole  future 
edifice  was  sketched  by  some  few  who  had  already 

determined  on  its  immediate  completion 

Among  the  religious  enthusiasts,  a  few,  under  the 
name  of  Inspirati  or  Anabaptists,  had  conceived 
the  idea  of  a  purification  of  Christianity  and  its 
forms,  according  to  the  dictates  of  reason;  an 

1  Introduction  to  History  of  Nineteenth  Century,  p.  26. 
2/6.,  p.  28. 


].%         THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE, 

idea  which  was  only  realized  in  the  days  of  their 
great-grandchildren,  whose  expatriated  mission- 
aries found  a  home  in  America."  He  further 
instances  as  especially  remarkable  their  "appeal 
to  a  divine  right  (the  natural  rights  of  man,  as 
they  were  afterwards  called ) ;  the  foundation 
of  Church  and  State  on  an  idea,  on  a  universal 
and  natural  right,  which  was  urged  in  opposition 
to  the  vexatious  privileges  of  the  few,  and  of 
castes."^  Voltaire,  who  had  few  soft  words  to 
bestow  on  religionists  of  any  sort,  and  who  knew 
of  the  Anabaptists  chiefly  from  their  executioners, 
who  "showed  them  about  in  cages  as  wild  beasls 
are  shown,  and  caused  their  flesh  to  be  torn  off 
with  red-hot  pincers,"  declares  that  the  "manifesto 
published  by  these  savages  in  the  name  of  the  men 
who  till  the  earth  might  have  been  signed  by 
Lycurgus,"  and  that  "their  demands  as  delivered 
in  writing  were  extremely  just." ^  It  is  they,  he 
said,  who  "laid  open  that  dangerous  truth  which 
is  implanted  in  every  heart,  that  mankind  are  all 
born  equal;  saying  that  if  Popes  had  treated 
princes  like  their  subjects,  princes  had  treated  the 
common  people  like  beasts."  ^ 

The  "manifesto"  above  referred  to  is  given  in 
full  by  Gieseler   in    his  EGdesmdical  History,^ 

1  Introduction  to  History  of  Nineteenth  Century,  p.  30. 

2  Works  (London,  1701),  vol.  IV.,  p.  70.       ^  Ih.,  p.  73. 
*  (Edinburgh,  1855),  vol.  V.,  p.  347-9. 


TUE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  VJl 

and  is  worth  referring  to,  alike  as  an  eloquent 
statement  of  their  notion  of  liberty,  and  a  proof 
of  their  avouching  of  the  word  of  God  as  the 
sole  source  of  that  notion  and  guaranty  of  their 
claim.  The  third  article  reads  as  follows: 
"Hitherto  it  has  been  the  custom  for  men  to 
hold  us  as  their  own  property,  which  is  a  pitiable 
case,  considering  that  Christ  has  delivered  and 
redeemed  us  with  his  precious  blood  shed  for  us, 
the  peasant  as  much  as  the  prince.  Accordingly, 
it  is  consistent  with  Scripture  that  we  should  be 
free,  and  wish  to  be  so.  Not  that  we  wish  to  be 
absolutely  free,  and  under  no  authority;  but  we 
take  it  for  granted  that  you  will  either  willingly 
release  us  from  serfage,  or  prove  to  us  from  the 
gospel  that  we  are  serfs.'^  As  a  "conclusion 
and  final  resolution"  of  the  whole  twelve  articles 
they  say,  "  If  one  or  more  of  the  articles,  herein 
set  forth,  is  not  in  agreement  with  the  word  of 
God,  we  will  recede  therefrom,  if  it  be  made 
plain  to  us  on  Scriptural  grounds  .  .  ,  Likewise 
if  more  articles  of  complaint  be  truly  discovered 
from  Scripture,  we  will  also  reserve  the  right  of 
resolving  upon  these."  Here  is  unmistakably 
Get  forth  the  claim  that  in  the  word  of  God  is 
to  be  found  that  intelligible,  infallible,  supreme, 
and  exclusive  revelation  of  fundamental  law, 
which  every  man  has  a  right  for  himself  to  read 


1.18         THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

and  comprehend,  and  to  wliich  every  man  must 
at  Ill's  peril  implicitly  submit.  And  here  is 
douljtless  that  radical  idea  in  which  the  pene- 
trating eye  of  Xeander  saw,  beneath  a  rough 
husk  of  crudity  and  fanaticism  in  the  early 
Anabaptists,  the  "mustard  seed"  of  a  near 
future. 

Crudity  and  fanaticism  enough  there  clearly 
was,  registered  in  that  company;  filling  the  fore- 
ground of  history  with  violence,  monstrosity,  and 
noisy  incoherencies.  But  Ave  must  remember 
that  almost  all  vital  forces  are  awkward  in 
their  first  forms.  The  swiftest  bird  first  props 
itself  on  ungainly  legs,  and  climbs  with  tremb- 
ling and  unsteady  wing  to  reach  its  arrow  flight. 
The  very  criterion  of  beginning  life  in  the  bio- 
plasmic  mass,  according  to  Dr.  Beale,  is  the 
shapelessness  of  its  uneasy  heavings.^  Nor  is  it 
to  be  forgotten  that  the  times  were  themselves 
chaotic.  The  old  was  broken,  or  breaking,  the 
new  was  not  yet  fashioned.  The  Reformation 
flood  was  sweeping  on  with  impetuous  majesty, 
and  ran  into  a  gulf  as  yet  unmeasured.  Up 
against  the  cataract  rose  a  spray  of  enthusiasm, 
formless.  Protean,  tempestuous.  Nevertheless, 
looking  steadily  upon  the  confused  scene,  we 
may  discern,  hanging  within,  distinct,  symmetri- 
^Life,  Force,and  Matter  (London,  1870),  p.  38. 


THE  MOULD   OF  DOCllilNE.  139 

cal,  abiding,  a  "bow  in  the  cloud."  The  very 
liarbinger  that  Neander  saw  of  the  coming  time, 
wlien  every  man  should  be  free  for  himself  to 
know  and  for  himself  to  obey  the  one  law — 
when  the  unfettered  soul  should  be  entrusted 
fully  with  the  unfettered   word. 

THE   ANABAPTISTS   AND   THIS   DEMAND. 

It  remains  to  inquire  how  directly  the  Ana- 
baptist movement  was  itself  associated  with 
this  idea ;  whether  such  association  was  logical, 
or  merely  incidental ;  and  if  logical,  whether  as 
cause  or  effect.  For  this  two  or  three  pre- 
liminaiy  suggestions  may  prepare  the  way. 

First  It  will  be  noticed  that  the  question  of 
immei-sion  was  not  as  yet  involved.  The  reason 
is  obvious.  The  practice  of  pouring  and  sprink- 
ling, though  prevalent  in  some  quarters  and  to 
some  extent,  had  a  place  by  sufferance  only,  and 
not  by  positive  injunction.  The  formulary 
drawn  up  by  Calvin  at  Geneva  was,  says  the 
learned  Dr.  Wall,  "the  first  in  the  world  that 
prescribes  affusion  absolutely."^ 

Second.  The  real  point  of  controversy  was  not 
the  alleged  rebaptizing  itself,  as  the  taunting  name 
transmitted  to  history  would  seem  to  imply ;  but 
the   repudiation    of    infant   baptism,   commonly 

^History  of  Infant  Baptism,  p.  718. 


140         THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

expressed  in  that  overt  form.  It  was  primarily 
a  revolt  against  an  existing  order,  rather  than 
the  fashioning  of  a  new  one.  Dr.  Wall  more 
accurately  terms  them  Antipedobaptists. 

Third,  Properly  there  was  no  specific  Ana- 
baptist sect  as  such.  Groups  most  widely 
separated  and  discordant  in  doctrine  and  spirit 
were  miscellaneously  covered  by  that  epithet. 
The  communistic  anarchist,  the  rationalistic  Sj- 
cinian,  the  mystic  Illuminist,  and  the  sober  Men- 
nonite,  though  differing  at  almost  every  other 
point,  agreed  in  their  contempt  for  this  institu- 
tion, and  were  bound  together  under  a  common 
name  thereby.  Indeed,  so  wide  was  the  sweep 
of  the  stream  spanned  by  that  comprehensive 
title,  and  so  impetuous  was  the  current,  that  it 
may  fairly  be  said  to  have  drawn  in  the  great 
body  of  those  who  sought  further  to  reform 
the  Reformation.  Even  some  of  its  original 
leaders,  including  Melancthon,  CEcolampadius, 
and  Zwingle,  barely  escaped  its  tremendous 
power,  as  they  distinctly  confess.^ 

Now,  it  is  scarcely  conceivable  that  mere 
accident  should  have  rallied  so  many  and  so 
discordant  groups  of  combatants  to  a  single  and 
so  narrow  a  point  of  resistance.      Nor  does   it 

'  Of.  Meander's  History  of  Dogmas,  vol.  II.,  p,  688. 
Planck,  History  of  Protestant  Tlieology   vol.  II.,  p.  47. 


TEE  MOULD   OF  DOCTRINE,  141 

seem  credible  that  those  heterogeneous  miihi- 
tudes  should,  through  mere  caprice  or  self-will, 
have  contested  even  to  the  galloNvs  and  the  block 
so  trivial  a  concession  as  the  harmless  submission 
of  their  children  to  the  priest's  hands  for  bap- 
tism. It  is  manifest  that  they  saw,  or  thought 
they  saw,  some  more  tremendous  weight  of  con- 
sequence hanging  on  that  pivot. 

Inevitably  thus  the  great  issues  of  church 
history  in  doctrine  and  life  have  grouped  about 
and  hidden  in  this  marvellous  symbolic  ordi- 
nance. As  in  the  time  of  John,  the  great  re- 
former, so  now, it  is  the  "axe  laid  unto  the''  very 
"root  of  the  trees."  "The  Reformation  had 
scarcely  boasted  an  existence  of  five  years,"  says 
Mohler  (beginning  his  account  of  the  "funda- 
mental principle  of  the  Anabaptists"  in  his 
work  on  Symbolism),  "when  from  the  midst  of 
its  adherents  men  arose  who  declared  it  to  be 
insufficient."  He  proceeds  to  urge  their  con- 
sistency in  that  claim,  since  as  a  necessary  result 
of  "Luther's  maxims  and  writings,"  "nothing 
is  easier  than  to  account  for  their  rejection  of 
infant  baptism." 

REFORMERS  OF  THE  REFORMATION. 

The  pregnant  idea  of  Luther's  career  was 
embodied  in  his  famous  ultimatum  at  the  Diet 


142         THE  MOULD    OF  BOCTMINE, 

of  AYorms,  refusing  to  retract  anything  but 
^vhat  could  be  shown  "from  reason  and  Scrip- 
ture, and  not  from  authority,  to  be  erroneous."  ^ 

For  many  centuries  the  Bishops  of  Rome  had 
claimed  infallibility,  and  to  doubt  their  dogmatic 
utterances  or  disobey  their  edicts  was  not  only  to 
be  a  heretic  but  a  rebel.  Under  that  usurped 
authority  they  had  gagged  reason,  subordinated 
the  Scripture  to  tradition,  and  substituted  the 
mailed  hand  for  the  winning  voice  of  the  gospel. 
All  this  was  embodied  in  infant  baptism,  in 
which  reason  was  insulted  by  the  dogma  of  bap- 
tismal regeneration  and  vicarious  faith,  Scripture 
perverted  or  ignored  in  behalf  of  tradition,  and 
voluntary  consent  of  the  baptized  made  impos- 
sible. 

In  his  revolt,  therefore,  against  force,  tradition, 
and  unreason,  Luther  was  bound  in  consistency 
to  sweep  away  this  final  bulwark  behind  which 
they  were  all  entrenched.  But  magnificent  as 
was  his  onset,  he  halted  too  soon,  and  began  to 
"  build  again  the  things  he  had  destroyed.'^  "As 
the  founder  of  a  new  Church ,^^  says  Roscoe,^  "he 
appears  in  a  very  different  light."  "In  one 
instance  he  effected  his  purpose  by  strenuously 
insisting  on  the  right  of  private  judgment  in 

1  Roscoe,  Leo  X,  vol.  II.,  pp.  105,  226. 

2  Ih.,  vol.  II.,  pp.  235,  236. 


THE  MOULD   OF  DOCTRINE.  143 

matters  of  faith,  whilst  m  the  other  he  succeeded 
by  laying  down  new  doctrines  to  which  he  ex- 
pected that  all  those  who  espoused  his  cause 
should  submit/'  When  arguments  from  Scripture 
failed,  he  resoii^  to  more  violent  njeasures. 

When  Carlstadt  refused  to  accept  his  fantastic 
theory  of  consubstantiation,  Luther  saw  in  that, 
*"as  well  as  in  the  denial  of  infant  baptism,^'  to 
use  Gieseler's  words,^  "the  sole  result  of  the 
pride  of  reason  advancing  beyond  Scripture; 
and  he  resisted  both  doctrines  as  entirely  analo- 
gous fanaticisms,"  and  banished  him  accordingly. 
Insulted  reason  thereupon,  being  denied  any- 
thing, seized  everything,  lifted  the  banner  of 
revolt,  and  marched  away  under  Socinus  into 
the  Unitarian  apostasy. 

Luther  had  staked  all  upon  the  supreme  au- 
thority of  the  written  word,  and  the  universal 
"liberty  of  prophesying.'^  But  he  forthwith 
assumed,  not  only  the  arbitrary  interpretation  of 
that  word,  but  the  right  to  impose  an  observance 
confessedly  unwarranted  by  it;  and  he  forbade 
the  intrusion  of  all  other  interpreters  except 
they  could  "work  miracles''  or  show  "priestly 
orders"^  in  the  apostolic  succession  as  their  cre- 
dentials.    Naturally  enough  he  found  many  as 

^  Ecclesiastical  History,  vol.  Y.,  p.  340. 
^Mohler's  Symbolism,  p.  369. 


141         TUE  MOULD   OF  LOCTRINE. 

sensitive  to  the  claim  of  monkish,  as  he  had 
been  of  Papal,  infallibility;  and  some,  vaunt- 
ing excess  of  liberty,  renounced  together  the 
mastery  of  Pope,  monk,  and  Scripture  alike; 
trusting  to  the  divine  sanction  of  that  "inner 
light"  which  they  left  to  the  Quakers  as  their 
chief  heritage,  and  which  has  cast  some  warm 
gleams  along  the  line  of  Moravian  and  Metho- 
dist descent. 

Again,  Luther  having  summoned  mankind 
to  a  revolt  against  all  depotism,  temporal  or 
spiritual,  had  ended,  as  Gervinus  says,  in  simply 
transferring  "the  divine  right  of  investiture 
from  the  Pope  to  the  secular  magistrate":^  thus 
making  the  struggle  to  be,  "not  for  the  liberty 
of  conscience  of  the  simple  individual  of  tne 
middle  class,  but  for  the  right  of  princes  to  make 
reforms  in  their  own  lands,  and  to  effect  im- 
provements in  the  Church  as  a  benefit  conferred 
by  them  on  the  people."  "Luther  had  been 
successful,"  says  Voltaire,^  "in  stirring  up  the 
princes  against  the  Pope  and  Bishops;  Miinzer 
stirred  up  the  peasants  against  them  all."  No 
wonder,  therefore,  when  they  were  summoned 
by  the  civil  magistrate,  under  penalty  of  death, 
to   renounce   reason  and  abandon  Scripture,  in 

*  Intro,  to  Hist,  of  the  Nineteenth  Century,  p.  32. 
2  Works,  vol.  lY.,  p.  73. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE,  145 

behalf  of  an  ordinance  for  which  they  fuund  no 
sanction  in  either,  that  they  retorted  that  "in- 
fant baptism  is  of  the  Pope  and  the  devil/' 
Nor  that  one  group  of  peasantry  raised  their 
grotesque  and  savage  war-cry,  "Forge  Pin-ke- 
pank  on  Nimrod's  anvil,"  and  like  the  defrauded 
Samson,  blind  and  crazed,  bowed  themselves  be- 
tween the  pillars  to  bring  down  the  whole  civil 
structure — the  lawful  progenitors  of  all  com- 
munistic enthusiasts  thenceforth. 

But  these  volcanic  outbursts,  though  so  con- 
spicuous, were  but  sporadic  hints  of  a  compact 
and  steady  flame  blazing  deeper  down.  There 
were  "yet  seven  thousand"  who  would  not  bow 
down  the  knee  either  to  the  Papal,  the  Lutheran, 
or  the  Libertine  Baal.  They  saw  in  the  unintel- 
ligent, unconsenting  babe,  thrust  by  magisterial 
force  into  the  priest's  hand,  the  very  image  of 
man  himself  under  the  terrible  hand  of  Rome : 
coming  thence  spiritually — as  was  fitly  symbolized 
physically  in  the  inquisition  torture  of  the  "iron 
virgin" — with  pierced  eye-balls,  mangled  flesh, 
and  crushed  bones.  But  they  saw  also  that  rea- 
son and  faith  are  harmonious  and  trustworthy 
only  when  yoked  indissolubly  to  Scripture.  For 
liberty  is  but  perfect  obedience  to  perfect  law — 
and  only  "the  law  of  the  Lord  is  perfect."  Re- 
sisting alike  the  intrusion  of  all  forms  of  human 


146         THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

authority — civil,  ecclesiastical,  or  social — into  that 
realm  Avliere  "Christ  alone  is  King  and  Law- 
giver," they  insisted  that  baptism,  Avhich  he  has 
made  the  outer  badge  of  discipleship,  belongs  to 
faith  alone — that  faith  rests  on  freedom — freedom 
on  intelligence — and  that  God's  word,  read  and 
comprehended,  alone  is  the  "truth  that  makes 
free.''  Thus — though  successively  accounted 
rebels,  heretics,  and  obstructives,  as  the  sceptre  of 
usurped  authority  has  passed  from  State  to 
Church,  and  from  Church  to  nineteenth  century 
"  Catholicity," — they  "  continue  unto  this  day 
^vitnessing  both  to  small  and  great,  saying  none 
other  things  than"  our  Lord  himself  taught 
them  when  he  said,  "  If  a  man  love  me,  he  will 
keep  my  wordsJ^ 


CHAPTER  IX. 

BAPTISM  AND  LOYALTY— DEBASING  THE 
STANDARDS. 

TN  a  volume  of  Theological  Essai/s,  published 
J-  a  few  years  since,  Mr.  E,.  H.  Hutton  oifers 
these  suggestive  comments  upon  the  history  and 
policy  of  the  Romish  Church.  "Rome  alone 
has  presented  her  theology  to  the  world  in  a 

thoroughly  institutional  form Romanism 

was  a  vast  organization  almost  before  it  was  a  dis- 
tinct faith.  Rome  did  not  so  much  incarnate  her 
dogmas  in  her  ritual  as  distill  her  dogmas  out  of 
her  ritual.^' ^  Again,  "Rome  in  general  acted 
first  and  thought  afterwards.  She  distilled  her 
Christian  theory  out  of  her  Christian  institu- 
tions. And  what  is  the  rule  by  which  she  has 
tested  her  institutions,  and  therefore,  in  the  last 
result,  her  dogmas?  It  is  by  their  adaptation  to 
the  mind  of  the  universal  church.  Neither 
ancient  nor  modern  Rome  has  had  any  strong 
love  for  truth  as  truth.  .  .  .  The  definition  of 
divine  truth   coming   nearest  to  the  conception 

»  (Philadelphia;  1876),  p.  336. 

147 


148         THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

which  seems  to  be  formed  of  it  by  the  Romish 
Church  would  be  "that  body  of  theoretic  as- 
sumptions which  would  be  needed  completely 
to  justify,  on  intellectual  grounds,  all  those  in- 
stitutions, special  and  general,  by  which  practi- 
cally she  has  been  enabled  to  win  hearts  and 
guide  nations.''  ^  That  is  to  say,  she  recognized 
the  necessity  of  positive  institutions  as  the  em- 
bodiment of  authority  and  basis  of  a  visible 
organism,  and  that  such  institutions  will  in- 
evitably "distill"  doctrine  and  mould  faith. 
She  thus  saw  that  she  must  build  upon  a  rock, 
and  that  the  outline  of  the  rock  would  shape 
the  outline  of  the  building.  But  instead  of 
taking  "Christ"  for  "that  rock,"  or  even  Peter, 
as  she  claimed  to  do,  laying  her  walls  along  the 
line  of  the  divine  ordinances  as  devised  by  the 
one,  and  set  in  place  by  the  other,  she  took  het^self 
for  a  foundation;  and  reshaping  the  ordinances 
to  the  measure  of  human  credulity,  passion,  and 
self-interest,  built  thereon  a  temple  of  supersti- 
tion and  self-will,  wherein  Christ  may  speak 
only  in  an  unknown  tongue  or  the  dumb  show 
of  the  mass,  and  appear  only  dead  on  the 
crucifix,  or  superfluous  in  the  niche,  or  in  the 
picture  on  the  wall. 

Recognizing  even  to  an  extreme  the  value  of 

1  Theological  Essays,  pp.  345,  346. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  149 

"catholicity"  as  a  test  of  truth,  Mr.  Ilutton 
insists  that  "in  order  that  the  social  power  and 
influence  of  an  institution  may  be  any  sign  of 
its  divine  origin,  the  common  cry  must  go  up 
spontaneously,  and  without  ulterior  aim,  out  of 
the  popular  heart":  not  so  "if  it  be  only  the 
result  of  combination,  instead  of  its  cause.  If 
you  can  explain  it  in  the  vulgar  method  by 
merely  pointing  to  a  common  and  visible  self- 
interest,  or  even  to  a  clearly  recognized  class  of 
common  aims  and  purposes,  then  there  is  no 
sacred  mystery  in  this  uplifting  of  a  common 
voice.  .  .  .  ^  Great  is  Diana  of  the  Ephesiaus' 
was  no  vox  populi,  but  merely  a  vox  argenta- 
riorum — ^a  voice  of  silversmiths.  It  was  an  offi- 
cial cry,  the  clamor  of  consentient  self-interests, 
issuing  from  the  artificial  mouth-pieces  of  esprit 
de  corps  J' ^  Tried  by  this  canon  the  "catho- 
licity" of  Romanism  breaks  up  into  a  partisan- 
sliip,  none  the  less  real,  because  of  the  length 
of  its  antiquity  and  the  strength  of  its  majority. 

And  what  other  alleged  "catholicity"  will  fare 
better,  when  offered  as  a  criterion  of  truth? 
For  where  is  the  man  that  does  not  belong  to 
some  "craft"  that  is,  or  at  times  seems  to  be, 
"in  danger,"  and  to  whom  is  not  some  vox 
argentariorum    a   vernacular?       The    acme    of 

*  Theological  Essa^/s,  p.  347. 


ino         THE  MOV  LB    OF  DOCTRINE. 

achievement  in  vital  mechanics  is  balanced  per- 
pendicularity in  man,  and  even  he  cannot  get 
forward  without  leaning.  So  long  as  ^Svinds  of 
doctrine '^  blow,  we  shall  be  likely  to  bend  be- 
fore them  or  against  them.  Even  without  their 
disturbing  pressure,  a  sudden  mental  apocalypse 
might  surprise  many  of  us  by  showing  that  we 
are  reeling  heavily  under  the  fumes  of  preju- 
dice, or  lolling  against  the  pillars  of  custom. 
The  determining  of  truth  by  the  averaging  of 
opinions,  therefore,  would  be  a  process  as  unre- 
liable as  the  sifting  out  a  vertical  line  by  com- 
puting the  net  direction  of  a  wilderness  of  slant- 
ing ones.  And  even  more  fatuous  would  it  be 
to  submit  a  standard  once  found  to  revision  by 
such  a  process.  Woe  to  the  man  who  attempts 
to  improve  the  perpendicularity  of  the  plumb- 
line  by  taking  counsel  of  ^Hhe  blowing  clover 
and  the  falling  rain.''  Such  a  plumb-line  is  the 
revealed  word  of  the  Divine  Christ,  and  such  an 
improvement  upon  its  perfectness  Kome  has 
essayed  by  the  consent  of  tradition,  the  vote  of 
Councils,  and  the  decree  of  Popes.  Infallibility 
having  been  successively  assumed  for  these,  falli- 
bility by  obvious  inference  fell  upon  all  else; 
and  the  practice  of  Rome  became  the  mould  by 
which  worship,  duty,  and  doctrine  must  be 
shaped,   and   into   conformity   with   which    the 


THE  MOULD    OF  D0CTIiI2iE.  151 

meaning  and  even  the  words  of  Scripture  r.  ust 
l)e  refashioned. 


A   REMNANT   OF   ROME. 

Can  the  Romish  spirit  have  been  so  subtle  and 
so  tenacious  as  imperceptibly  to  have  penetrated 
in  any  degree  into  and  lingered  in  the  atmos- 
phere of  Protestantism?  The  spectroscopists 
have  amazed  us  by  finding  the  three-millionth  of 
a  milligramme  of  sodium  in  a  dust  speck,  where 
the  most  delicate  chemical  tests  had  failed  to  re- 
veal its  presence.^  Perhaps  we  may  err  in  fancy- 
ing we  have  a  spiritual  spectroscope  so  fine,  or  at 
least  that  we  know  equally  well  how  to  use  it. 
But  wherever  we  find  an  ecclesiastical  practice  or 
dogma  virtually  erected  into  a  standard,  to  the 
pattern  of  which  formularies  are  progressively 
readjusted,  (such  readjustment  gravitating  toward 
the  gradual  extrusion  of  associated  Scriptural 
language  or  idea  as  incongruous),  and  to  the  exi- 
gencies of  which  the  canons  of  interpretation 
and  translation  must  be  made  to  bend,  we  may 
fairly  suspect  a  residual  element  from  Pome. 
That  the  practice  of  sprinkling,  in  lieu  of  im- 
mersion, under  the  name  of  baptism,  applied  to 
infants  as  the  rule  and  to  adults  only  exception- 

^  Schellen's  Spectrum  Analysis  (New  York,  1872),  p.  5. 


ir,2         HIE  MOULD    GF  DOCTRINE. 

ally,  has  been  made  such  a  standard,  and  with 
such  results,  it  is  sought  here  to  show. 

The  testimony  of  the  late  Dean  Stanley,  in  his 
before-mentioned  Nineteenth  Century  article  on 
Baptism  (afterward  substantially  embodied  in  his 
book  on  Chnstian  Institutions),  is  worthy  of 
citation  in  this  connection.  The  pnmitive  bap- 
tism he  distinctly  affirms  was  immersion.  "On 
philological  grounds  it  is  quite  correct  to  trans- 
late John  the  Baptist  by  John  the  Immerser.'^  ^ 
"Baptism  by  sprinkling  was  rejected  by  the  whole 
ancient  Church  (except  in  the  rare  case  of  death- 
beds or  extreme  necessity)  as  no  baptism  at  all.''  ^ 
It  was  of  adults.  "The  liturgical  service  of 
baptism  was  framed  entirely  for  full-grown  con- 
verts, and  is  only  by  considerable  adaptation  ap- 
plied to  the  case  of  infants.''  ^  It  was  intelligent 
and  voluntary,  for  it  was  "  of  their  own  delibe- 
rate choice" — it  was  ^'tlie  special  sacrament," 
"the  pledge,"  the  "oath  of  allegiance."*  Of 
this  primitive  normal  type  he  sets  out  to  find 
what  he  significantly  calls  the  "residue."  In- 
stead of  a  baptism  which  is  the  immersion  of  an 
adult  believer,  he  finds  a  baptism  which  is  not 
immersion,  not  of  an  adult,  and  not  of  a  believer. 
Suppose  that  on  an  apothecary's  shelf  is  a  jar 

1  Nineteejith  Century  Magazine,  vol.  YI.,  p.  698. 
^Ih.  Uh.,^.&^%  -^  76.,  p.  692. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  163 

labeled  "pure  water."  Now  pure  water  is  "color- 
less, trausparent,  and  without  taste  or  smell." 
But  in  the  jar  he  finds  only  a  viscid  drop  which 
is  not  colorless,  not  transparent,  and  not  without 
taste  or  smell.  He  will  surely  conclude  that  the 
only  "residue"  is  the  label,  which  to  avoid  con- 
fusion might  better  be  removed.  At  least  he 
will  take  it  as  an  odd  suggestion  that  the  muddy 
globule  be  made  the  standard  of  "pure  water," 
and  Webster's  definition  re-adjusted  thereto.  But 
Dean  Stanley  says  the  primitive  ordinance  was 
one  "to  which  no  existing  ritual  of  any  Euro- 
pean Church  offers  any  likeness" — "the  change 
from  immersion  to  sprinkling  has  set  aside  the 
larger  part  of  the  apostolic  language,  and  has 
altered  the  very  meaning  of  the  word."  ^  By 
way  of  testing  the  trustworthiness  of  these  con- 
clusions, it  may  be  profitable  to  study  some  of 
the  reflex  influences  of  the  present  practice  on — 

FIKST — THE   REVISION   OF   FORMULARIES. 

The  successive  changes  made  by  the  English 
Church,  and  by  the  American  Methodist  Church 
advancing  thereon,  will  afford  a  convenient  field 
of  inquiry.  For  impartial  authority  WalFs 
well-known    History    of   Infant    Baptism    and 

*  Nineteenth  Century  Magazine,  vol.  VI.,  p.  698. 


154  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

Sherman's  History  of  the  MdJiod'ist  DiscipUney 
will  be  relied  upon.  ^ 

Up  to  1530,  according  to  Wall,  the  formu- 
laries for  public  baptism  universally  enjoined 
dipping,  without  mentioning  pouring  or  sprink- 
ling. The  Sar-um  Manual  of  that  year  pre- 
scribed dipping  alone.  In  the  Common  Prayer 
Book  printed  in  1549,  it  is  added,  "if  the  child 
be  weak,  it  shall  suffice  to  pour  water  upon  it,'' 
etc.^  Subsequently,  he  says,  "the  inclination  of 
the  people,  backed  with  these  authorities  (that 
of  Dr.  Whitaker,  Calvin, and  others),  carried  the 
practice  against  the  rubric,  which  still  required 
dipping,  except  in  cases  of  weakness."^  In 
revising  the  Prayer  Booh  at  the  Restoration  (the 
Pmitan  Directory  Avhich  had  disj)laced  it  in 
1644  having  declared  it  "not  only  lawful,  but 
most  expedient"  to  use  pouring  or  sprinkling), 
the  Church  "did  not  think  fit  to  forego  their 
maxim  in  favor  of  dipping":  but  being  equally 
unwilling  to  ignore  the  drift  of  custom  and 
popular  taste,  they  so  modified  the  rubric  as  to 
concede  in  fact  what  they  refused  in  word.  For 
by  requiring  the  child  to  be  dipped  only  when 
the  godfather  shall  certify  that  it  "may  well 
endure  it,"   they  removed  the   presumption  of 

1  Wall,  before  cited.    (See  p.  34.)   Sherman  (N.  Y.,  '74). 

2  Wall,  pp.  715,  716.  3  75.^  p.  713. 


TEE  MOULD   OF  DOCTRINE.  1^5 

robustness  by  which  alone  dipping  had  been 
preserved  as  the  rule.  Thenceforth,  as  Wall  re- 
gretfully remarks,  "they  never  do  certify  the 
priests/'  and  "  the  priests  seldom  ask  the  ques- 
tion/' and  dipping  has  wholly  wasted  away  in 
the  English  Church.^ 

The  American  Methodist  Episcopal  Church, 
formally  organized  in  1784,  in  its  original 
Discipline  provides  for  "the  choice  either  of 
ininiersion  or  sprinkling"  (to  which  is  added  in 
1786  "or  pouring.")'^  Persons  baptized  in 
infancy  and  having  now  scruples  are,  if  they 
persist  after  argument,  to  be  baptized  "by  im- 
mei'sion  or  sprinkling,"  as  they  desire.'  This 
"Anabaptist"  heresy  lingered  in  the  Discipline 
until  1868.  The  ritual  order  of  baptism, 
abridged  from  that  of  the  English  Church, 
originally  required  the  minister,  taking  the 
child  into  his  hands,  "to  dip  it  in  water  or 
sprinkle  it  therewith" — in  the  midst  of  which 
was  inserted  in  1786  "or  pour  water  upon  it" 
— and  finally  in  1792  the  whole  clause  was 
erased,  and  in  its  stead  inserted  "sprinkle  or 
pour  water  upon  it,  or  if  desired,  immerse  it 
in  water."*  In  the  original  formulary  ape  re- 
tained, from  the   English,  allusions  to  the  case 

1  Wall,  pp.  750,  721.        2  Sherman,  p.  t20.        '  Tb. 
*  lb.,  p.  306. 


15C         THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

of  Noah  and  of  Israel  led  through  the  sea,  as 
"figuring  this  holy  baptism'' — to  the  baptism 
of  Jesus  "in  the  river  Jordan" — to  the  burial 
of  the  "old  Adam''  and  the  raising  up  of  the 
"new  man  in  him" — to  "spiritual  regeneration" 
and  the  "resurrection  from  the  dead" — all  which 
have  successively,  but  with  singular  uniform'ty, 
been  singled  out  for  expurgation.^  Substantially, 
therefore,  the  ritual,  by  purging  itself  of  all 
malapropos  Scripture,  has  so  far  refashioned 
itself  to  the  "  broken  mould,"  that  regeneration 
and  resurrection  are  effectively  excluded  from 
its  symbolism;  a  result  which,  as  before  men- 
tioned, has  been  reached  by  the  British  Wes- 
leyans  in  a  still  more  categorical  form.  And 
this  notwithstanding  John  Wesley's  comment 
on  Rom.  6  :  4,  viz. :  "  Buried  with  him — allud- 
ing to  the  ancient  manner  of  baptizing  by  im- 
mersion," and  the  entry  in  his  Journal  of  "Feb. 
21,  1736,  Mary  Welch,  aged  eleven  days,  was 
baptized  according  to  the  custom  of  the  first 
church,  and  the  rule  of  the  Church  of  England, 
by  immersion."^ 

It  may  be  added,  that  while  Calvin  was  un- 
equivocal in  admitting  that  "the  word  baptize 
means  immerse,"^  and  the  Westminster  Confession 

^  Sherman,  p.  300,  seq. 

2  Journal  (London,  1872),  vol.  I.,  p.  25. 

3  Commentary  on  A  ds,  8  :  38. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  157 

declared  only  that  "dipping"  was  "not  neces- 
sary," the  Presbyterian  Church  of  to-day  in  its 
^'Directory  for  Worship^^  has  gone  on  actually 
to  forbid  immersion,  for  it  enjoins  "pouring  or 
sprinkling,"  "without  adding  any  other  cere- 
mony." ^  The  unique  attitude  thus  assumed  by 
Presbyterianism  in  practice  and  ritual  may  sug- 
gest one  element  at  least  for  the  explanation 
of  another  phenomenon  equally  unique.  Any 
student  of  the  later  Commentaries  will  be  struck 
with  the  fact,  that  while  nearly  all  scholars  of 
the  English  and  Continental  Churches  have 
recognized  frankly  and  without  reserve  the  con- 
clusiveness of  the  verdict  of  philology,  exegesis, 
and  history,  in  favor  of  immersion  as  the  primi- 
tive baptism,  there  has  been  a  conspicuous  sensi- 
tiveness and  reluctance  in  that  direction  on  the 
part  of  the  Scotch  writers,  followed  and  intensi- 
fied along  the  same  lines  on  this  side  of  the  sea. 
Among  the  Episcopalians  and  Lutherans,  where 
the  union  of  Church  and  State  and  the  con- 
tinuance of  prelatic  functions  make  extreme 
notions  of  ecclesiastical  authority  still  tolerable; 
or  where,  on  the  other  side,  rationalism  has 
supplanted  the  supremacy  of  Scripture,  there  is 
no  sense  of  discomfort  in  confessing  the  distinct- 

1  Appendix  to   Psalms  and    Hymns,   Presbyterian 
Boa-d,  Philadelphia,  p.  42. 


158  TEE  MOULD    OF  D0C2HINE. 

ness  of  the  command,  avoiding  its  present  claims 
by  pleading  release  through  subsequent  author- 
ity. But  in  non-prelatic  Churches,  and  where 
latitudinarianism  is  not  yet  dominant,  this  re- 
source fails.  It  will  be  in  vain  there  to  forbid 
what  the  Scripture  is  acknowledged  to  prescribe. 
To  have  reconstructed  the  ritual  so  as  to  coincide 
with  the  practice  will  be  in  vain,  except  the 
Scripture  can  also  be  reconstructed  so  as  to  har- 
monize with  both.  Hence  the  emergency  that 
issues  in — 

SECOXD THE    WARPING    OF    INTERPRETATION. 

"  The  Scriptures,"  says  Bungener,  "  were  writ- 
ten by  common  men  to  be  understood  by  common 
men.''  ^  "  The  more  any  interpretation  bears  the 
mark  of  simplicity,  and  it  appears  as  if  it  ought 
to  have  struck  the  reader  before,  the  more  likely 
is  it  to  be  true,"  says  Ernesti.  "It  is  better  to 
run  all  lengths  with  Scripture  truth  in  a  natural 
and  open  manner,"  Bengel  ^  adds,  "  than  to  shift 
and  twist  and  accommodate."  "The  sense  of 
Scripture  is  one,  certain  and  simple,"  breaks  in 
Melancthon,^  and  is  everywhere  to  be  ascertained 
in   accordance  with  the  principles  of  grammar 

1  History  of  Council  of  Trent  (N.  Y.,  1855),  p.  96. 

2  Life  by  Burck,  p.  257. 

3  Elements  of  Rhetoric,  II. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  159 

and  human  disccurse."  And  finally  Luther: 
"  We  must  not  make  God's  word  mean  what  we 
wish;  w^e  must  not  bend  it,  but  allow  it  to  bend 
U8;  and  give  it  the  honor  of  being  better  than 
we  could  make  it;  so  that  we  must  let  it  stand." 
But  the  fatal  facility  of  exegesis  when  under 
stress  is  proverbial,  and  has  been  often  justly 
satirized.  Mohammed,  it  was  said,  prohibited 
the  eating  of  a  certain  part  of  the  swine.  But 
the  Mussulman,  having  first  assumed  uncertainty 
as  to  the  part  forbidden,  argued  against  the 
probability  of  the  intended  application  of  the 
prohibition  to  each  part  successively,  until  he 
had  gone  over  the  whole.  The  result  Cowper 
sums  up: 

Thus,  conscience  freed  from  every  clog, 
Mohammedans  eat  up  the  hog.  i 

Dean  Swift's  famous  study  of  the  dexterously 
interpreted  will  scarifies  the  same  foible.  The 
retention  of  the  demise  was  made  dependent 
among  other  things  on  the  heir's  refraining  from 
the  wearing  of  "silver  fringe."  But  that  style 
of  decoration  having  come  in  fashion,  it  was 
opportunely  found  that  the  term  "silver"  was 
"allegorical,"  and  that  "fringe"  (being  perhaps 
a  "generic"  word)   might  mean    "broomstick." 

1  Jacox,  Secular  Annot.  (London,  1871),  vol.  II.  p.  49. 


IGO         lUE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

The  objection  that  a  prohibition  to  wear  an 
"allegorical  broomstick"  was  unmeaning,  ^^as 
overruled  as  "irreverent  and  hypercritical."^ 
This  sarcasm  is  not  lower  than  the  strange 
abuses  of  Scripture  which  provoked  it.  Of 
such  a  character  ^vas  the  sermon  justifying  the 
persecution  of  heretics,  from  the  words  "Rise, 
Peter,  slay  and  eat."  The  defence  of  seven  as 
the  number  of  the  sacraments  on  the  ground 
that  mysterion  is  the  Greek  word  for  sacrament, 
and  that  se\-3n  is  the  mystic  number;  and  the 
proof  that  the  mass  Ls  a  true  oblation  because 
Paul  speaks  of  the  "table  of  the  Lord,"  while 
"table"  means  "altar,"  and  an  "altar"  implies 
"sacrifice,"  are  of  like  character.^  Dumoulin 
justly  says,  that  to  depend  on  such  proof-texts  is 
"like  warming  oneself  at  the  moon."  Even 
the  great  Augustine,  to  save  unbroken  the 
doctrine  that  baptism  is  essential  to  salvation, 
maintains  that  the  dying  thief  was  baptized 
with  blood  from  the  Saviour's  wounded  side, 
or  else  had  been  baptized  before  his  conviction. 

SOME   ILLU.STEATIVE   IK^STANCES. 

Matthew  (3:  6)  describes  the  people  as  bap- 
tized "in  Jordan."     Dr.  Whedon^  {in  loco)  says: 

1  Tale  of  a  Tub,  Works,  (Ediii.,  1814)  vol.  II.,  p.  88. 

2  Buugeuer,  Council  of  Trent,  pp,  152,  337,  338. 

*  Commentary/  on  Matthew  (New  York,  1870),  p.  47. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.         161 

"The  Jordan  had  several  banks  within  banks, 
so  that  a  person  could  be  in  the  Jordan  on  dry 
ground."  This  curious  geographical  informa- 
tion, fortified  by  a  citation  from  Dr.  Thomson, 
is  conveyed  for  the  purpose  of  adding  a  caveat 
against  what,  it  seems  to  be  implied,  would  be  a 
a  natural  inference  from  the  language  itself. 
"This  expression,  4n  Jordan,'  only  indicates, 
therefore,  where  the  rite  was  performed :  it  in  no 
luay  indicates  the  mode.^'  This  adroit  effort  at 
the  evisceration  of  the  Evangelist's  meaning — 
suggested  long  before,  by  the  way,  by  Ewing, 
an  antagonist  of  Dr.  Carson — ^  has  been  since 
treated  somewhat  harshly  by  the  Revisers,  who 
make  the  text  now  read  "in  the  river  Jordan," 
as  the  parallel  passage  in  Mark  already  did. 
But  waiving  that,  consider  how  fantastic  a  theory 
is  here  put  forth  in  the  name  of  interpretation, 
to  divest  the  words  of  their  natural  meaning, 
obvious,  but  inconvenient  for  the  interpreter. 
By  the  same  process,  having  moved  1800  years 
forward,  try  the  statement  that  a  man  was 
"drowned  in  the  Mississippi."  "Mississippi" 
may  readily  mean  ^Mississippi  Valley,  especially 
as  that  is  often  called  the  Mississippi  "bottom" 
— the  word  "drowned"  means  "strangled,"  and 
"strangled"    is    a    "generic"    word    including 

1  Sec  Baptism  (Philadelphia,  1860),  p.  125. 
L 


162  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

'^hanged;"  and  since  no  man  would  go  into  the 
water  to  be  hanged,  the  legitimate  rendering  of 
the  passage  would  be  that  he  was  '^hanged  in 
the  Mississippi  Valley/^  One  of  the  pioneers 
and  among  the  ablest  exponents  of  this  school 
of  exegesis  was  Dr.  Paulus,  who  sought  to  prove 
by  the  same  process,  also  with  an  ulterior  though 
different  motive,  that  when  our  Lord  is  said  to 
have  walked  on  the  Sea  of  Galilee,  he  only 
walked  in  fact  along  its  shores.  ^ 

One  of  the  expressions  cited  most  widely  and 
confidently  by  theologians  and- liturgies  as  de- 
scribing baptism,  and  with  special  emphasis  by 
some  as  justifying  infant  baptism,  and  excluding 
immersion,  is  that  used  by  Paul  in  Titus  3 :  5, 
"the  washing  of  regeneration."  But  those  who 
thus  apply  it  must  maintain :  \.  Immersion.  For 
the  Greek  word  {loutron)  takes  in  the  whole 
body,  not  a  part.^  2.  Baptismal  regeneration. 
Since  this  is,  in  such  a  case,  the  literal  force  of 
the  terms  used.  On  the  other  hand,  that  this 
was  not  the  natural  interpretation  of  the  words, 
but  reflected  upon  them  by  a  perverted  ordinance, 
and  a  false  doctrine  craving  justification,  is  man- 
ifest:     1.    From   the   grammatic   parallelism — 

'  Christlieb,  Modern  Doubt,  p.  346 
2  "■Louo''  to  bathe,  to  wash,  but  only  a  person  or  the 
whole  body.'' — Robinson,  Gr.  Lex.  of  New  Testament. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOUTJilJVE.  163 

"washing  of  regeneration,  and  renewing  of  the 
Holy  Ghost" — as  the  Holy  Ghost  renews,  so  re- 
generation washes.  One-half  cannot  be  inverted 
without  inverting  both,  which  Avoiild  shatter  the 
sense.  2.  From  the  force  of  the  figure.  Kcgen- 
eration  may  wash,  for  life  cleanses ;  death  only  is 
pollution.  "Being  born  again  by  the  word  of 
God,"  says  Peter, — "  that  he  might  cleanse  it  (the 
church)  with  the  washing  of  water  by  the  word," 
says  Paul — "Now  are  ye  clean  through  the 
word,"  says  our  Lord.  On  the  other  hand,  wash- 
ing can  never  bring  life.  No  washing  can  change 
the  "leopard's  spots"  and  the  "sow's"  filth  into 
the  purity  of  a  "new  creature."  ^ 

Another  passage  strangely  distorted  and  even 
reversed  in  emphasis  by  enforced  subjection  to  a 
theory,  is  Paul's  joint  reference  to  baptism  and 
circumcision  in  Col.  2:  11,  12.  Here,  true  to 
the  instinct  above  mentioned,  the  Scotch  Presby- 
terian, Dr.  Eadie,  says,  "  We  are  not  prepared  to 
admit  c>f  any  allusion  to  that  form  (immei-sion) 
in  the  clause  before  us."  "  The  apostle  looks  on 
baptism  and  circumcision  as  being  closely  con- 
nected, the  spiritual  blessing  symbolized  by  both 
being  of  a  similar  nature."  ^  Baptism  having 
been  assumed  to  be  a  drop  applied  at  a  single 

^  Cf.  Jacox,  Secular  Annotatiov}^,  vol.  IT.,  p.  48. 

^  Commentary  on  Colussians  (Lcutlon,  18.")G),  p.   153. 


164  THE  MOULD    OB  DOCTRINE. 

\r)h\t  of  the  body,  and  to  be  the  exact  counter- 
part of  circumcision,  how  natural  and  how  com- 
fortable is  it  to  read  the  apostle  as  here  confirm- 
ing both  ideas.  But  this  is  wholly  to  dislocate 
his  meaning.  The  comparison  is  one  of  con- 
trast, not  of  resemblance.  It  is,  says  Lightfoot,  ^ 
the  "  contrast  of  literal  circumcision  of  part  of 
the  flesh,  with  putting  off  the  whole  in  baptism." 
The  word  used  to  describe  the  contrasted  whole- 
ness of  baptism  is  a  double  compound  to  that 
end:  "a  word,"  he  adds,  "as  strong  as  it  is  rare 
to  express  the  idea  of  completeness,  both  in 
energy  of  action  and  extent  of  operation."^ 
"The  eye,  the  ear,  the  hands,  the  feet,  all  have 
been  baptized  with  the  divine  baptism,"  says 
Perowne.  ^  Hence  follows  the  exhortation  in 
ch.  3:  5,  to  realize  what  has  been  symbolized, 
"Deaden  therefore  your  members,"  etc.  The 
same  emphasis  on  symbolized  entireness  occurs 
in  Gal.  3 :  27 ;  for  as  Baur  remarks  on  that  pas- 
sage,'*  "he  who  puts  on  a  garment  goes  alto- 
gether inside  it,"  and  so  there  is  an  "  end  of  the 
exterior    identity   of    the   believer."      This,   he 

^  Commentary  on  Colossians  (London,  1880),  p.  184. 

2  Jh.,  pp.  184,  189. 

3  Halsean  Lectures,  1868,  on  Immortality  (New  York, 
1870),  p.  119. 

4  F.  0.  Baur,  Life  of  Paul  (London,  1875),  vol.  IL, 
p.  177. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  105 

says,  "graphically  represents"  burial  into  Christ's 
death  in  "immersion." 

Finally,  the  "baptism  of  fire,"  referred  to  by 
John  in  Matt.  3:  11,  has  been  most  grotesquely 
put  under  the  bellows  to  forge  a  shaft  against 
immersion.  "  This  text,"  Dr.  Whedon  says,*  "  is 
the  fundamental  passage  for  showing  from  the 
very  nature  of  the  rite  what  is  the  true  method 

of  performing  baptism The  baptism  of  the 

Holy  Spirit  was  not  by  immersion,  but  aiFu.sion. 
.  .  .  the  tongues  of  fire  sat  on  them."  He  adds 
the  glim  Boeotian  hint,  for  those  "whom  it  may 
concern,"  that  "  baptismal  fire  is  aifusion ;  the  fire 
of  Hell  is  immersion."  Dr.  James  Strong,  of 
the  same  Church,  on  the  other  hand,  insists  that 
the  " baptismal  fire"  here  alluded  to  is  the  "fire 
of  Hell,"  being  an  "overwhelming"  with  "con- 
suming vengeance."^ 

That  the  Pentecostal  allusion  is  imposed  upon 
and  not  suggested  by  the  expression  in  question  is 
manifest.  The  contextual  use  of  "fire"  not  only 
does  not  hint  but  really  forbids  it,  as  has  been 
often  pointed  out.  Nor  is  there  anything  in  the 
Pentecostal  scene  to  suggest  the  idea  of  pouring 
or  sprinkling,  more  than  of  immersion,  in  the 
"appearing"  of  "tongues  parting  asunder"  that 

1  Commentary  on  Matthew. 

2  Harmony  of  the  Gospels  (New  York,  1854),  p.  30. 


166         TEE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

"  sat  on  each  of  them/^  In  fact,  the  attempt  to 
determine  the  'Hrue  mode  of  performing  bap- 
tism" from  the  single  featui-es  of  that  occasion 
will  land  the  inventors  of  that  scheme  at  an  unde- 
sired  port.  To  identify  the  baptism  of  the  Spirit 
with  the  "  rushing  of  a  mighty  wind/^  the  "  being 
filled  with  the  Holy  Spirit/^  and  the  "speak- 
ing" with  "tongues,"  would  teach  re-baptism, 
which  all  Christendom  repudiates :  for  these  were 
repeated  upon  the  same  subjects.^  One  solitary 
circumstance  remains  that  never  recurred  to 
them:  "it  filled  all  the  house  where  they  were 
sitting."  They  were,  in  the  words  of  Professor 
Plumptre,  of  King's  College,  "plunged  as  it 
were  in  the  creative  and  informing  Spirit  which 
was  the  source  of  life  and  holiness  and  wisdom."^ 
The  confusion  introduced  into  this  whole  sub- 
ject by  a  back-handed  exegesis  might  be  greatly 
relieved  by  remembering  that  the  "baptism  of 
the  Spirit"  and  the  "gifts  of  the  Spirit"  are 
distinct.  The  priest  was  anointed  after  he  was 
washed:  the  Spirit  came  on  our  Lord  after 
baptism,  and  AndrcAv  thereupon  spoke  of  him 
as  "  the  Christ " :  and  the  charisms,  whether  of 
tongues  or  other,  are  nowhere  confused  with 
baptism  in  the  New  Testament. 

^  Acts4.:  31. 

2  ''Handy   Commentary"  (T.ondon,  1879),  edited    by 
Bp.  Ellicott,  on  Matt.  3:11;   cf.  Acts  1 :  5. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  107 

These  examples  may  suffice  to  show  how 
imperious,  how  insidious,  and  how  pernicious  is 
the  power  of  a  mutilated  ordinance.  There  was 
once  a  "shekel  of  the  sanctuary,"  the  standard 
and  test  of  all  others.  Plow  certainly  would  tlio 
holder  of  a  coin  clipped  or  wasted,  but  which  lie 
claimed  to  be  the  true  shekel,  desire  to  bring  the 
sanctuary  standard  to  conformity  with  his  own. 
Speaking  of  the  good  and  learned  men  who 
persist  that  en  hudatl  must  be  rendered  with 
water  J  Dr.  Campbell,^  of  Aberdeen,  an  extraordi- 
nary Presbyterian,  says,  "The  true  partisan 
always  inclines  to  correct  the  diction  of  the  Spirit 
by  that  of  the  party. ^^  "  I  am  sorry  to  observe," 
he  adds  (p.  23)  "  that  the  Popish  translators  from 
the  Vulgate  have  shown  greater  reverence  for 
the  style  of  that  version  than  the  generality  of 
Protestant  translators  have  shown  for  that  of  the 
Original.  For  in  this  the  Latin  is  not  more 
explicit  than  the  Greek." 

1  Four  Gospels,  on  Matthew  3  ;  11. 


CHAPTER  X. 

BAPTISM  AND  LOYALTY—  THE  TIL  TIM  A  TE  ISSUE. 

FARRAR  begins  his  History  of  Free  Thought 
by  describing  it  as  "the  struggle  of  the 
human  mind  to  free  itself  from  the  authwity  of 
the  Christian  faith."  ^  As  if  responding  to  con- 
firm this  view  Strauss  writes  in  his  New  Life  of 
Jesus:  "In  the  person  of  Jesus  no  supernatur- 
alism  shall  be  allowed  to  remain :  nothing  which 
shall  press  upon  the  souls  of  men  with  the 
leaden  weight  of  arbitrary ,  insci-utable  authority. ''  ^ 
The  chief  priests  and  elders  had  challenged  our 
Lord  himself  long  before  with  the  words  "By 
what  authority  doest  thou  these  things?"^ 

It  becomes  us  earnestly  to  ask — What  is  this 
"authority'^  which  seems  to  provoke  to  instinc- 
tive and  perhaps  unconscious  revolt? — lest  we 
ourselves  may  have  come  in  contact  with  it,  and 
"  haply  be  found  even  to  fight  against  God/^  If 
there  be  any  embodiment  of  it,  we  may  fairly 

»  Bampton  Lectures,  1862  (New  York,  1863),  p.  1. 

2  Cited  in  Farrar's  Witness  of  History  to  Christ  (Lon- 
don, 1871),  p.  5]. 

3  Matt.  21  :  23. 

168 


THE   MOULD    OF  DOCIHINE.  100 

regard  as  such  that  last  consummate  expression 
of  his  kingly  will,  which  the  risen  Redeemer 
gave  to  his  disciples  as  the  organic  statute  of  his 
kino:dom.  As  rendered  in  the  Revised  Version 
the  passage  reads  thus :  "All  authority  is  given 
unto  me  in  heaven  and  on  earth.  Go  ye  there- 
fore, and  make  disciples  of  all  the  nations,  bap- 
tizing them  into  the  name  of  the  Father  and  of 
the  Son  and  of  the  Holy  Ghost :  teaching  them 
to  observe  all  things  whatsoever  I  commanded 
you."  The  first  and  last  of  these  injunctions, 
viz. :  to  "  make  disciples,''  and  to  "  teach  them  to 
observe''  all  "things  commanded,"  have  been 
universally  regarded  as  of  literal  obligation. 
But  the  mid-lying  clause,  although  it  embodies 
one  of  those  very  "things  commanded,"  and  the 
only  one  thus  exalted  into  isolated  eminence,  is 
not  only  treated  as  belonging  to  an  inferior 
category,  but  the  proposition  to  "observe"  it  as 
of  positive  significance  like  the  rest,  is  in  many 
quarters  treated  with  an  impatience  verging  to- 
ward indignation  or  contempt. 

It  is  totally  immaterial,  we  hear  continually, 
whether  "baptize"  means  "immerse"  or  not, 
since  precise  conformity  is  in  any  case  unne- 
cessary.    And  this  because, 

1.  Christianity,  being  a  spiritual,  not  a  formal 
religion,  looks  to  the  intent,  and  lays  no  emphasis 


170         THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE, 

on  the  outward  act.  Insistence  on  immersion, 
J- ays  Dr.  Scliaif  in  his  Church  History,  is  a 
''pedantic  Jewish  literalism.^' ^ 

2.  The  verdict  of  Christendom  has  settled  the 
question.  "  The  overwhelming  majority  of  Prot- 
estant Christians,  to  say  nothing  of  Roman 
Catholics,  are  unbaptized,"  if  immersion  only  is 
baptism.  Such  is  the  broadside  poured  into  the 
Baptist  stronghold  by  Dr.  Rice.^ 

3.  Our  more  refined  civilization  revolts  at  so 
coarse  a  form.  It  is,  to  cite  Dean  Stanley, 
"peculiarly  unsuitable  to  the  tastes,  the  conve- 
nience and  the  feelings  of  the  countries  of  the 
North  and  West.'^  The  substitution  of  sprink- 
ling he  regards  as  "a  striking  example  of  the 
triumph  of  common  sense  and  convenience  over 
the  bondage  of  form  and  custom."^ 

In  the  Gospel  of  Matthew  (chapters  21  and 
22)  are  recorded  in  immediate  succession  three  of 
of  our  Lord's  parables,  apparently  uttered  on  a 
single  occasion,  which  precisely  anticipate  these 
modern  suggestions,  one  by  one.  They  are  full 
of  profound  significance  in  this  connectic»n,  of 
which  only  a  hint  can  here  be  given.     They  are : 

1  (New  York,  1860),  vol.  L,  p.  123. 

2  Mode  of  Baptism,  p.  36. 

^  Nineteenth  Century  Magazine,  vol.  VI.,  p.  698. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRIJSE.  171 

FIRST,  THE  PARABLE  OF  THE  DISOBEDIENT  SON. 

A  father  commanded  his  two  sons  to  work  In 
the  vineyard.  The  first  said  "I  will  not,'^  but 
afterwards  went.  The  second  said  "  I  will," 
but  never  went.  The  bystanders,  being  appealed 
to,  decided  instantly  that  the  first  alone  "did  the 
will  of  his  father."  Now  the  "doing  the 
Father's  will"  is  the  one  thing  on  which  our 
Lord  lays  most  stress  as  essential  in  the  Chris- 
tian life.^  He  here  plainly  teaches  that  when 
that  will  is  embodied  in  an  explicit  command, 
there  is  no  obedience,  whatever  the  intent,  short 
of  doing  the  specific  thing  commanded,  in  a 
"pedantically  literal"  way.  Had  the  father 
given  the  son  a  parable  to  be  puzzled  over,  a 
doctrine  to  be  meditated  on,  or  even  a  statement 
of  fact  to  be  received,  these  addressing  them- 
selves to  the  intellect  might  have  demanded 
delay,  and  involved  embarrassment  in  appre- 
hension and  mental  adjustment.  But  a  com- 
mand is  addressed  to  the  will  alone:  and  no 
response  is  possible  but  surrender  or  refusal, 
and  these  take  form  in  outward  act  or  omission 
to  act.  All  law  is  specifically  a  rule  of  conduct. 
Only  where,  as  in  the  old  common  law,  that  rule 
must  be  traced  through  a  tangle  of  bewildering 

1  Malt.  7  :  21 ;  12  :  50 ;  MarkZi  35  ;  John  4 :  34 ;  5  :  30. 


172         THE  MOULD    OF  DOG  THINE,   . 

precedents  and  general  maxims,  can  imperfect 
conformity  be  in  any  degree  atoned  for  by  good 
intent.  The  explicit  statute  cuts  off  such  a  plea. 
Failure  to  keep  that  lias  no  excuse,  except  it  can 
show  the  statute  itself  ambiguous  or  impracti- 
cable. There  is  no  trouble  in  distinguishing  the 
common  law  realm  of  the  parabolic,  doctrinal, 
and  ethical  in  Scripture — which  are  given  to 
stimulate  research,  reflection,  and  inference — 
from  the  explicit  statutes  of  the  Lord,  which 
need  only  to  be  obeyed.  Concerning  these  he 
says,  "  Why  call  ye  me  Lord,  Lord,  and  do  not 
the  things  which  I  say?'^ 

That  so  palpable  a  principle  as  is  here  empha- 
sized should  ever  be  overlooked  is  due  in  part, 
perhaps,  to  a  latent  and  dangerous  ambiguity  of 
thought  lying  in  the  word  "  authority '^  itself. 
Thiers  and  the  first  Napoleon  were  both 
"authors":  the  one  of  the  History  of  the  Em- 
jpire,  the  other  of  the  Empire  itself.  The 
"authority"  of  the  one  was  doctrinal — in  the 
realm  of  opinion  only;  of  the  other  magisterial 
— in  the  realm  of  law.^ 

It  is  quite  possible  to  pass  insidiously  from 
the  one  sphere  to  the  other,  and  under  the  garb 
of  an  interpreter  to  assume  the  functions  of  a 

1  Cf.  Gladstone's  Gleanings,  (Scribner,  New  York), 
vo\  III.,  p.  139. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTIliyE.  173 

lawgiver.  John  Calvin,  in  his  Institutes,  spoke 
with  the  authority  of  a  logician;  in  his  comments 
on  the  Romans  with  that  of  an  exegete;  in  his 
translation  of  baptir.o^  with  that  of  a  linguist, 
appealing  to  reason  and  the  Scripture  itself  for 
his  vindication;  but  when,  having  admitted  the 
command  to  immerse  to  be  distinct  and  unquali- 
fied, he  proceeded  to  offer  dispensation  from 
literal  obedience  by  decreeing  that  ^^  dipping  is 
not  necessary,"  ^  he  assumed  the  functions  of  a 
Pope,  and  spoke  with  no  authority  at  all,  for  he 
appealed  to  nothing.  Dr.  Hodge,  of  Princeton, 
decided  that  baptism  with  sand,  mud,  wine,  oil, 
or  milk,  though  in  the  name  of  the  Trinity,  and 
with  perfect  intent,  is  invalid:  because  'Svater 
is  essential  to  baptism,  and  as  far  as  'the  matter' 
is  concerned  nothing  else  is."^  It  is  as  though 
where  the  law  required  an  official  signature  for 
the  authentication  of  a  particular  document,  a 
judge  should  hold  that  a  blotch  from  an  over- 
turned inkpot  would  be  sufficient;  since ''ink  is 
essential  to  a  signature,  and  as  far  as  '  the  matter' 
is  concerned  nothing  else  is."  Our  Lord  com- 
manded a  specific  act  to  be  performed — whatever 

1  Commentary/   on  Acts   (Edinburgh,  1846),   (on    ch. 
8  :  38),  vol.  I.,  p.  364. 

2  Jb.,  cf.  institutes,  Book  IV.,  cap.  15,  p.  19. 

3  Oil  Church  Polity/  (New  York,  1878),  p.  198. 


174         TEE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

is  conditional  to  that  act  is  of  course  implied; 
but  to  teach  that  the  thing  implied  is  essential, 
and  the  thing  commanded  non-essential,  is  not  to 
interpret,  but  to  legislate. 

It  is  curious,  indeed,  that  those  who  are  so 
averse  to  literalness  in  form  should  be  so  pain- 
fully precise  as  to  literalness  in  element.  Is 
water  in  itself  more  "spiritual''  than  milk  or 
wine?  And  is  it  really  venial,  in  a  religion 
which  "regards  only  the  intent,''  to  change  the 
form  through  caprice,  but  mortal  to  change  the 
elements  through  necessity,  as  in  the  case  of  the 
desert-bound  disciple,  whose  sand  baptism  was 
pronounced  invalid?  In  this  specific  case  it  was 
Rome  who  first  taught  us  to  appeal  from  Christ 
to  the  Pope  to  learn  what  is  really  essential  in 
the  divine  word.^ 

"Go  work,"  said  the  father.  The  words  are 
verbs,  and  describe  acts.  They  are  not  figurative 
or  paradoxical.  The  son  who  refused  literal 
obedience  disobeyed.  "Go  baptize,"  said  our 
Lord.  The  word  "baptize,"  says  the  learned 
preacher,  means  "immerse" — "I  baptize  thee," 
he  repeats,  moistening  the  forehead  with  a  drop. 
"  They  say,  and  do  not,"  said  our  Lord  of  the 
Pharisees. 

1  On  Church  Polity  (New  York,  1878),  p.  198. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.         175 

SECOND,   THE   PARABLE  OF  THE   REBELLIOUS 
TENANTS. 

Never  was  there  a  more  "catholic  cousent" 
than  that  of  the  husbandmen  who  had  hired  the 
vineyard.    The  verdict  that  they  need  not  pay  for 
it,  but  on  the  contrary  might  usurp  the  inheritance 
itself,  was  unanimous,  and  vigorously  acted   on 
against  all  claimant  messengers.    But  it  is  plainly 
liinted  that  there  are  some  questions  not  deter- 
minable by  a  majority  vote.     Obligation  arises 
out  of  a  state  of  facts,  and  cannot  be  extinguished 
by  any  process  short  of  payment,  or  abolition  of 
these  facts.      It  may  be  very  true  that  if  the 
debtor  "  owes  ten  thousand  talents  and  has  not 
to  pay,"  he  may  "be  sold,  etc.,  that  payment  may 
be  made"  :^  but  that  unhappy  consequence  would 
be  quite  irrelevant  as  disproving  the  existence  of 
the  debt.     It  is  painful  enough  to  think  of  the 
"overwhelming   majority   of   Protestant   Chris- 
tians" as  "  unbaptized,"  and  so  it  is  to  think  of 
the   over^vhelming    majority   of    the   people   in 
Christian  lands  as  not  Christians  at  all :    either 
statement  would  bring  offence,  but  neither  pain 
nor  indignation  settles  a  question  of  fact.     The 
toothache  does  not  extinguish  itself  by  agonizing 
as.     The  obligation  to  be  baptized  arises,  not 

I  Matthew  18  :  25. 


176         THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTIillfE. 

out  of  the  consent  of  Christendom,  but  out  of 
the  command  of  Christ.  Whether  any  man  has 
obeyed  the  command  is  to  be  determined,  not  by 
asking  what  conclusion  would  be  most  comfort- 
able for  him  or  most  flattering  to  the  majority, 
but  rather  what  was  the  exact  thing  required, 
and  has  that  thing  been  done.  The  debt  due  to 
the  landlord  was  neither  disproved  nor  paid  by 
resentment  against  the  messengers. 


SUBJECTS. 

The  citizens  who  had  tacitly  accepted  the  in- 
vitation to  the  king's  feast  did  not  generally  find 
it  "convenient"  to  come  when  summoned.  One 
went,  but  in  a  garment  of  his  own  devising, 
seeing  the  "wedding  garment"  was  unsuited  to 
his  "tastes."  There  is  a  significant  inverse 
gradation  in  these  parables.  On  the  one  side 
they  ascend — the  father,  the  landlord,  the  king: 
on  the  other  they  descend — an  arbitrary  com- 
mand, an  equitable  claim,  a  courteous  invitation. 
But  while  no  specific  punishment  is  attributed  to 
the  sluggish  son,  the  presumptuous  guest  meets 
the  bitterest  fate  of  all.  The  lesson  is  obvious. 
Evil  as  is  the  neglect  of  the  father's  authority, 
still  worse  is  an  insult  to  the  king's  majesty. 
And  that  insult  they  offer  who  "make  light  of" 


TUE  MOULD    OF  DOCTJil^E.  177 

his  message,  or  prefer  their  own  patterns  as  more 
decorous  than  his. 

Notwithstanding  Dean  Stanley's  statement,*  it 
is  very  difficult  to  believe  that  the  change  from 
immersion  to  sprinkling  was  due  at  all  to  change 
in  climate,  custom,  or  taste.  Palestine  itself 
was  not  strictly  tropical.  Our  Lord  speaks  of  a 
"cloak"  as  well  as  a  "coat."^  Ritter  says,  "the 
cold  north  winds  of  winter  make  furs  very  com- 
fortable in  Jerusalem."^  "The  waters  of  the 
Jordan  are  then  (in  winter  and  early  spring)  so 
cold,  as  they  flow  from  the  snows  of  Lebanon, 
that  even  Arabs  will  not  bathe."  So  writes 
Geikie,''  citing  Sepp  and  others.  Frozen  Russia 
has  clung  to  immersion.  Subtropical  Italy  has 
abandoned  it.  The  change  since  the  days  of 
Queen  Elizabeth,  who  was  immersed/^  has  not 
coincided  with  a  roughening  English  climate,  or 
a  gradual  abandonment  of  "  bathing "  (if  that 
has  any  bearing).  They  plainly  delude  them- 
selves, therefore,  who  imagine  that  so  flimsy  a 
pretext  could  ever  have  been  the  original  and 

^Nineteenth  Century  Magazine,  vol.  VI.,  p.  698. 

»  Matthew,  5  :  40. 

3  Geography  of  Palestine,  (New  York,  1866),  vol.  IV., 
p.  182. 

♦  Life  of  Clirist,  (New  York,  Appleton,   1880),  vol. 
I.,  p.  577. 

6  AVall,  History  of  Jvf.  Bap.,  pp.  712,  717. 
M 


178         TEE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE, 

avowed  basis  of  so  serious  a  departure,  however 
it  may  be  urged  in  defence  of  an  established 
custom.  The  case  of  Italy,  as  contrasted  with 
that  of  Russia,  shows  that  the  alleged  "  triumph 
of  common  sense  and  convenience''  is  in  fact 
the  triumph  of  Papal  assumption.  The  devout 
Presbyterian  does  not  in  fact  refer  to  his  arbi- 
trary "taste"  as  the  ultimate  criterion,  in  decid- 
ing what  is  valid  baptism,  but  to  the  Church 
formulaiy — and  that  rests  on  the  "authority" 
of  John  Calvin. 

It  is  nevertheless  a  serious  matter  to  "make 
light  of"  any  feature  of  our  Lord's  regulations, 
even  by  a  frivolous  or  disparaging  word.  The 
beggars  were  welcome  at  the  king's  feast,  for 
they  were  not  too  "refined"  to  wear  the  garments 
which  the  king  himself  had  chosen :  but  the  man 
who  sought  to  air  his  "Christian  liberty"  in  a 
garment  of  newer  and  superior  cut,  got  himself 
and  the  rebuke  that  met  him  pinned  fast  on  the 
enduring  page,  for  the  leisurely  study  of  all  sub- 
sequent adventurers  Avho  incline  to  exalt  sesthe- 
tics  above  revelation. 

Immediately  succeding  these  parables  in  Mat- 
thew's narrative  is  an  incident  which  crowns 
their  teaching;  reminding  us  that  events  were  as 
fluent  as  parables  to  the  Divine  Teacher's  will.* 

^  Matthew  22:  15—22. 


TEE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  179 

The  ^'entangling"  qnestion — the  coin  from  Cses- 
ar's  "mould" — the  pungent  answer,  "Render 
therefore  to  Caesar  the  things  which  are  Caesar's ; 
and  unto  God  the  things  that  are  God's" — all 
these  are  familiar.  They  teach  us  to  recognize 
discriminate  spheres,  and  to  render  "tribute  to 
■whom  tribute  is  due"  in  each.  Tacitus  speaks 
of  soldiers  who  preferred  "to  discuss,  rather  than 
to  obey,  their  leader's  commands,"  thus  virtually 
assuming  leadership  themselves.  Caesar's  coin 
bore  the  impress  of  his  majesty  in  his  "image 
and  superscription:"  to  alter  that,  to  clip  the 
coin  itself,  or  to  withhold  it  when  claimed  as 
tribute,  would  be  treason  against  the  empire. 
But  if  unquestioning  loyalty  in  the  slenderest 
trifle  was  due  to  a  human  ruler,  how  much  more 
to  the  Divine.  Caesar  might  utter  laws  super- 
fluous, ephemeral,  or  otherwise  needing  to  be 
repaired  or  to  be  adjusted:  this  is  only  to  say 
that  he  was  human. ^  Not  so  of  him  who 
"  knows  the  end  from  the  beginning,"  and  whose 
command  is  to  last  unchanged  and  unrepealed  to 
the  end  of  the  world.  To  attempt  remodeling 
that  to  meet  changes  impliedly  unforeseen  or 
neglected,  is  to  revise  the  judgment  of  Omnis- 
cience and  "charge  God  with  folly." 

'  Of.  G.  C.  Lewis,  on  Methods  of  Observation,  etc.,  in 
Politics  (London,  1852),  vol.  L,  pp.  470,  472. 


180         THE  MOULD   OF  DOCTRINE, 
BAPTISM   THE  TEST   OF   LOYALTY. 

And  now,  lest  this  discussion  should  seem  to 
be  a  mere  grouping  of  accidental  coincidences 
and  their  perversion  to  an  alien  end,  it  may  be 
well  to  call  attention  to  the  circumstance  that  * 
occasioned  the  parables  cited,  and  furnished  their 
theme.  The  transition  will  be  easy,  from  the 
contrasted  claims  of  God  and  Caesar,  just  men- 
tioned, to  the  contrasted  authority  of  baptism, 
regarded  respectively  as  "from  heaven  or  of 
men."     (Ch.  21  :  25.) 

The  chief  priests  and  elders  had  questioned 
our  Lord's  authority.  He  flashed  their  lantern- 
light  back  into  their  own  faces,  and  down  into 
their  hearts,  with  a  question  which,  though  seem- 
ingly remote,  was  all  too  close  for  them.^  He 
picketed  them  in  fact  between  the  two  horns  of 
a  dilemma,  from  one  of  which  they  must  dangle, 
unless  they  could  slip  out  between.  *'The  bap- 
tism of  John,  whence  was  it?  from  heaven  or 
of  men?''  They  had  superciliously  treated  it 
as  human,  "being  not  baptized  of  him":^  but 
they  had  not  dared  to  deny  that  it  was  divine, 
"for  they  feared  the  people."  They  vaulted 
therefore  through  a  ready  loophole,  saying,  "We 

^  See  Dr.  Parker's  admirable  chapter  on  Christ  as  an 
Interlocutor,  Kcce  Deus,  (Boston,  1868),  p.  207,  seq. 
2  Luke  7  :  30. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.         181 

cannot  tell":  and  were  pursued  by  the  athletic 
parables  in  question. 

It  is  noticeable  that  our  Lord  here  makes  bap- 
tism the  test,  as  it  is  in  itself  the  expression,  of 
wholeness  of  loyalty.      "His  (John's)   idea  of 
repentance  exceeded  the  outward  requirements  of 
the  Mosaic  law,"  writes  Dr.  Lange,  "as  much  as 
his  rite  of  immersion  that  of  sprinkling."^     It 
was  "to  fulfil  all  righteousness,"  "laying  down 
his  life   of  himself"  ^^  symbolically,  as  he  after- 
wards did  literally,  that  Christ  was  baptized  in 
Jordan.     "Ye  became  obedient  from  the  heart  to 
that  form  (or  pattern)  of  teaching  whereunto  ye 
were  delivered":'   so  Paul  sums  up  the  whole- 
ness and  absoluteness  of  the  life-surrender  em- 
bodied in  the  sacramental  t\-pe. 

The  Pharisee's  answer  may  imply  contempt 
for  the  question  as  trivial,  or  real  uncertainty. 
If  the  latter,  it  was,  as  shown  by  our  Lord's 
further  words,  only  a  convenient  and  inexcusable 
uncertainity.  "  None  deny  there  is  a  God,  but 
those  for  whom  it  maketh  that  there  w^ere  no 
God,"  Lord  Bacon  pithily  remarks.*  Having 
repudiated  John's  baptism,  it  was  needful  some- 
how to  discredit  it.     The  plea  of  impracticability 

iLanffe,  Matthexv  (Ed.  Sehaff,  1869,)  p.  69. 
2  Matthew  3  :  15  ;  John  10  :  18. 
'^Romans  6  :  17.  [Canterbury  Revision). 
*  Wbately's  Bacon,  p,  155. 


182         2 HE  MOULD    OF  VOG TRINE. 

being  obviously  unavailable,  that  of  uncertainty 
alone  remained  possible.  But  they  were  flour- 
ishing a  deadlier  weapon  than  they  knew. 

A  recent  periodical  contained  a  stirring  sermon 
from  a  Methodist  preacher  on  this  question  to 
the  Pharisees,  concerning  the  origin  of  John's 
baptism.^  The  theme  deduced  from  it  was, 
"The  Inspiration  of  Moses."  Its  relation  to 
the  text  will  not  at  once  blaze  on  the  reader, 
but  its  statement  reveals  a  true  homiletic  in- 
stinct. The  baptism  of  John  and  the  message 
of  Moses  proceed  from  the  same  source,  appeal 
to  like  credentials  and  demand  like  reverent 
submission.  Wilful  or  disingenuous  dealing 
with  the  one  will  inevitably  entail  like  treat- 
ment of  the  other.  Therefore,  Christ  will  not 
"commit  himself  to  them;"  for,  as  he  intimates 
in  his  parable,  they  who  have  not  dealt  fairly 
with  the  "servants"  will  not  "reverence  the 
Son."  2 

A    LINGUISTIC   AGNOSTICISM. 

If  the  validity  of  baptism  be  really  inde- 
pendent of  mode,  so  that  proving  the  word  to 
mean  "immerse"  would  be  entirely  irrelevant 
and  immaterial,  as  is  constantly  affirmed,  it  is 
plain  that    so   translating   the  word   would   be 

^  Cliautauqua  Assembly  Herald,  Aug.,  1882. 
2  Matthew  21:  38,  39. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTltlSE.  183 

equally  harmless.  In  that  case  it  is  singular 
that  Bishop  Titcomb  should  have  been  so  "em- 
barrassed" by  such  translation,  and  that  the 
Bible  Society  should  have  decided  it  impossible 
"consistently  to  use  and  circulate"  a  Bible 
infected  by  it.^  The  sensitiveness  thus  mani- 
fested reveals  the  conscious  untrust worthiness  of 
the  theory  advanced.  "  The  bed  is  shorter  than 
that  a  man  can  stretch  himself  on  it."  The 
meaning  of  the  word  is  of  consequence.  It 
must\)Q  "embarrassing"  to  explain  even  to  the 
stupidest  Burman  that  Christ  has  commanded  his 
followers  to  be  "  immersed/^  that  he  has  said,  "  if 
a  man  love  me  he  will  keep  my  loords,''  and  that 
therefore  it  is  his  duty  to  be — sprlnlded.  There 
is  a  more  convenient  way — it  is,  when  he  asks 
what  Christ  means  by  being  baptized,  to  say, 
"  We  cannot  tell."  This  linguistic  agnosticism 
is  the  inevitably  adjacent  burrow  into  which  t  e 
argument  vanishes  if  hotly  pressed.  The  mean- 
ing of  the  word  is  only  immaterial  when  men 
do  not  insist  on  knowing  it,  but  impossible 
when  they  do.  Indeed,  it  is  argued  that  the 
meaning  is  uncertain  because  it  is  immaterial, 
and  also  immaterial  because  it  is  uncertain. 

It  is  possible  here  only  by  fragmentary  illus- 
tration to  show  how  the  exigency  thus  arising 

1  Bible  Society  Record,  June  15,  1882. 


184         THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

presses  scholarship  awry,  and  "blinds  the  eyes 
of  the  wise/'  The  mention  of  a  name  so  dis- 
tinguished and  revered  as  that  of  Dr.  Schaff,  in 
this  connection,  affords  occasion  to  say,  what  it 
is  hoped  might  in  any  case  be  charitably  believed, 
that  the  citations  made  in  these  papers  have  been 
made  purposely  from  men  in  various  denomina- 
tions high  in  attainments  and  in  the  esteem  of 
the  Christian  world.  It  would  be  absurd  to 
suppose  that  the  inconsistent  or  erroneous  teach- 
ings attributed  to  them  are  meant  to  impugn 
their  abilities  or  motives;  on  the  contrary,  the 
more  clear-sighted  and  unimpeachably  conscien- 
tious they  are  reckoned,  the  stronger  is  the  case 
here  sought  to  be  made  against  the  witchery  of 
a  perverted  ordinance, 

The  difference  in  th^  ecclesiastic  atmosphere 
of  German  Lutberanism  and  Presbyterian  ism 
has  been  already  s^lluded  to.  Dr.  Schaif  (then 
in  the  Lutheran  Seminary  at  Mercersburg),  piib- 
lished  in  1858  his  History  of  the  Christian 
Church.  In  1882,  (then  being  in  the  Prasby- 
terian  Seminary  in  the  city  of  New  York),  he 
published  a  revised  edition  of  the  first  volume. 
In  this  revision  anjong  many  changes  occur 
t!.ese  significant  ones.  The  statement  of  1858, 
that  "the  usual  form  of  baptism  was  immersion, 
is  plain/' ^  from    divers  circumstances,  becomes 

»  Vol.  I,  p.  122. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  185 

now  only  that  It  is  "inferred."^  The  old  refer- 
ence to  ^^  later  Hellenistic  usage"  ^  as  allowing  to 
baptism  "sometimes  the  wider  sense  of  washing 
and  cleansing,"  now  becomes  an  avowal  that 
"  Hellenistic  usag^e "  ^  at  laro^e  did  the  like.  A 
serious  change:  for  while  the  former  statement 
could  not  affect  the  question  in  hand,  the  latter 
clearly  might.  It  would  be  interesting  to  know 
what  secret  archives  have  recently  disgorged  tes- 
timony to  reverse  the  overwhelming  verdict  of 
scholarship  since  Schneckenburger's  day/  to 
which  Dr.  Schaff  assented  in  1858,  that  prose- 
lyte baptism  was  unknown  in  Christ's  day. 
Again,  in  1869,  Dr.  Schaif  published  Lange's 
Commentary  on  Matthew ,  annotated  by  himself. 
It  is  there  stated  without  note  of  qualification 
or  dissent,  as  to  John's  baptism,  that  "  This  bap- 
tism was  administered  by  immersion,  and  not  by 
sprinkling."^  Ten  years  later,  in  1879,  Dr. 
Schaff  published  another  Commentary  on  3Iat- 
thew,  prepared  by  himself  with  the  help  of  Dr. 
Kiddell.     Speaking  of  the  same  baptism,  he  now 

1  Vol.  I.,  p.  468.  2  p,  125.  3  p.  469. 

*  The  whole  matter  is  thus  summed  up  by  Fairbairn: 
"  So  far  as  the  direct  evidence  goes,  the  very  utmost  that 
can  be  said  is,  that  indications  appear  of  Jewish  prose- 
lyte-baptism as  an  existing  practice  during  the  fourth 
century  of  the  Christian  era." — Hermeneutics  (Phila- 
delphia, 1859),  p.  305. 

*  Lange,  Matthew,  p.  68. 


186         THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE, 

says,  "The  subjects  went  into  the  river,  and 
were  either  immersed  by  John,  or  water  was 
poured  on  them.  The  Greek  verb  baptize  is  a 
technical  term  for  a  symbolical  washing."  ^  If 
this  means  that  it  has  now  become  a  technical 
term,  it  is  irrelevant.  If  it  means  that  it  was 
so  when  our  Lord  used  it,  the  world  waits  for 
proof.  Most  extraordinary  tasks  have  been 
attempted  in  that  direction.  Dr.  Krauth  his 
even  undertaken  to  prove  that  the  modern  tech- 
nical sense  of  taufen  is  in  fact  its  ancient  sense, 
and  that  Luther  never  used  it  as  meaning  to  dip, 
although  Luther  himself  says  he  did.^ 

One  of  the  most  extraordinary  books  on  the 
"technical  sense"  is  that  of  Dr.  Armstrono:, 
whose  whole  argument  is  distinctly  "  limited  to 
baptizo  used  as  a  religious  or  sacred  term.^^^  It  is, 
he  says,  "always  a  generic  term,  having  no 
reference  to  mode :    and  hence  to  translate  it  by 

1  Scribner's  Popular  Commentary,  1879,  vol.  I.,  p.  42. 
Cf.  also,  on  use  of  Greek  preposition  en,  Lange  on  Mat- 
thew 3 :  11,  with  Schaff  and  Riddell  on  same  verses,  and 
also  on  Mark  1 :  8. 

2  Krauth,  Conservative  Reformation  in  Theology 
(Philadelphia.  1871),  p.  536.  Cf.  Schaff-Herzog,  Kn'cy- 
clopoedia  of  Religious  Knowledge  (New  York.  1882). 
*'  Luther  sided  with  the  im^lersiotlist^J,  and  described  the 
baptismal  act  as  an  immersion,  and  derived  taufe  (Ger- 
man for  baptism),  from  tief  (deep),  because  what  one 
baptized,  he  sank  tief  in  the  water." — p.  210. 

3  Sacraments  of  the  New  Testament, (New  York,  1880), 
p.  12. 


TUB  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  187 

(lip,  immerse,  sprinkle,  or  pour,  will  be  to  mis- 
translate the  word  of  GodJ'^  His  main  au- 
thority for  asserting  the  occurrence  of  such  terms 
in  the  New  Testament  is  Dr.  Campbell,  from 
whom  he  quotes  in  extenso — substantially  to  the 
eifect  that  "classical  use  is  not  only  sometimes 
unavailing,  but  may  even  mislead."^  Dr.  Camp- 
bell is  correctly  cited  thus  far :  but  he  supplies 
further  information  on  this  subject,  which  is,  very 
abstemiously,  refused,  viz. :  "  The  word  baptizeifij 
both  in  sacred  authors  and  in  classical,  signifies 
to  dip,  to  plunge,  to  immerse,  and  was  rendered  by 
Tertullian,  the  oldest  of  the  Latin  Fathers, 
linger e,  the  term  used  for  dyeing  cloth,  which 
was  by  immersion J^^  The  same  Dr.  Campbell 
reminds  those  who  insist  that  it  is  impossible 
definitely  to  translate  a  word  because  it  has  secon- 
dary meanings,  that  by  the  same  rule  all  lan- 
guage would  become  hopelessly  indefinite.  "  The 
explanation  of  a  simple  sentence  will  appear  like 
the  solution  of  a  riddle."  "  The  verb  to  make  in 
our  language  has,  according  to  Johnson,  sixty- 
six  meanings,  to  put  eighty,  and  to  take  one  hun- 
dred and  thirty-four."  *  Every  institution  ought 
to  be  suspected,  which  for  its  own  self-justifica- 

^  Sacraments  of  the  New  Testament  (New  York,  1880), 
p.  1.  ^Jb.,]).^. 

3  The  Four  Gospels  (Aberdeen,  1854),  vol.  IV.,  p.  24 
(on  Matthew  3:  11).        ^  lb.,  vol.  I.,  p.  97. 


188         THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

tion  begets  an  effort  to  weaken  confidence  in  the 
certainty  of  the  word  of  God.  Milraan  in  his 
Essays  says,  "The  first  to  impugn  the  authen- 
ticity of  Scripture,  leading  Astruc,  Eichhorn, 
Pauhis,  and  Strauss,  was  the  Jesuit  father  Simon ; 
who  did  it  to  assert  the  authority  of  the  Church/'  ^ 
To  reach  tliat  end  Simon  contended  that  "the 
greater  part  of  the  Hebrew  words  are  equivocal, 
and  that  their  signification  is  entirely  uncertain,'^ 
and  that  the  "Hebrew  lexicons  commonly  contain 
nothing  but  uncertain  conjecture.''^  "Modern 
neology  deals  with  Christ's  words  just  as  Rome 
does,"  says  Archer  Butler,  "treating  them  as 
imperfect;  showing  that  the  philosophy  of 
Romanism  and  that  of  Rationalism  are  funda- 
mentally one."^ 

THE   WITNESSING   WOED. 

Akin  to  the  exigency  which  tempts  to  obscure, 
is  that  which  tempts  to  alter,  the  written  word. 
The  liberties  which  Rome  has  taken  in  this 
direction  are  familiar  to  all.  In  the  Index  of 
Pope  Clement  VIII.  it  is  declared  proper  "to 
expunge  even  the  words  of  sacred  Scripture 
which   may  be   impiously  turned  to  a  profane 

1  (London,  1870),  p.  302 ;  cf.  p.  305. 

2  Campbell,  The  Four  Gospels,  vol.  I.  pp.  81-3. 

3  Letters  on  Eomamsm  (Cambridg-e,  1858),  p.  28. 


TEE  MOULD   OF  DOCTRINE.  189 

use."^  In  Cardinal  Wiseman's  Essays  we  are 
informed  that  "the  prenomen  '  Jesns/  of  Barab- 
bas,  has  from  motives  of  reverence  been  dropped 
from  the  text." 

Dr.  Jenner,  physician  to  Edward  YI.,  pub- 
lished a  Drama  in  which  he  represents  the  mass 
as  praying  thus : 

"  Because  in  the  Bible  I  cannot  be  found 
The  heretics  would  bury  me  under  ground. 
I  prav  you  heartily,  if  it  be  possible,  ^^ 
To  get  me  a  place  in  the  great  Bible." 

The  Council  of  Trent  exalted  the  Vulgate  above 
the  original  Greek  and  Hebrew,  as  the  "authen- 
tic" Scripture.  =^  Eadie  says,  the  British  and 
Foreign  Bible  Society  did  the  same  thing  for  the 
Elzevir  text  of  1624,  (and  by  keeping  verses  in 
it  now  known  to  be  spurious,  "circulated  a 
forgery  in  the  divine  name."^)  The  American 
Bible  Society  has  erected  the  common  English 
Version  into  a  like  canon;  requiring  all  its 
issues  to  be  "  conformed  in  the  principles  of  their 
translation"  to  it.*  It  has  gone  further;  it  has 
declared  that  version  authentic  only  as  the  word 
"baptism"  is  taken  in  a  particular  sense:  it 
being  impossible  "consistently  to  use  and  circu- 

i  Cited  in  Letters  on  Romanism,  p.  27. 

2  Bungener,  Council  of  Trent,  p.  90. 

3  History  English  Bible,  vol.  II.,  p.  347,  note. 
*  See  Rules  of  Translation. 


100  THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE. 

late"  any  translation  in  which  the  equivalent  for 
"baptize'^  is  understood  among  the  peopl.'^  as 
meaning  "immerse."^  It  follows  logically  that 
if  the  autograph  manuscripts  of  the  Evangelists 
should  be  discovered  to-day,  they  must  be  de- 
clared ^Meficient  in  catholicity/^  and  could  not 
be  "consistently  used  and  circulated''  among  the 
Greeks  (where  the  word  baptizo  is  universally 
understood  to  mean  "immerse'')^  until  revised 
by  inserting  rantizo  or  cheo,  in  order  to  conform 
them  to  the  "principles"  of  the  English  version. 
It  is  a  good  omen  that  there  is  so  much  anxiety 
to  explain  away  the  definite  meaning  of  this 
critical  word.  It  reveals  an  increasing  popular 
anxiety  and  determination  to  know  its  meaning. 
Prelacy  is  an  anachronism — indiflPerentism  does 
not  quiet  the  conscience — the  issue  narrows  to  the 
word  itself.  "  What  is  written  in  the  law  ?  how 
readest  thou?"  The  "mould"  has  been  broken, 
but  the  witnessing  word — kept  by  the  providence 

»  Bible  Society  Becord,  June  15,  1882. 

2Cf.  Stanley,  Eastern  Church  (London,  1861),  p.  17. 
"  The  humblest  peasant  who  reads  his  Septuagint  or 
Greek  Testament  in  his  own  mother  tongue,  on  the  hills 
of  Boeotia,  may  proudly  feel  that  he  has  an  access  to  the 
original  words  of  divine  truth  which  the  Pope  and  Car- 
dinal reach  by  a  barbarous  and  imperfect  translation." 
'•There  can  be  no  question  that  the  original  form  of 
baptism — the  very  meaning  of  the  word — was  complete 
immersion  in  the  deep  baptismal  waters.  .  .  To  this 
form  the  Eastern  Church  rigidly  still  adheres." — p.  34. 


THE  MOULD    OF  DOCTRINE.  191 

and  grace  of  God  through  superslitioiis  jealousy 
of  the  letter,  fossilization  of  language  and 
palimpsest — remains  intact.  To  it  the  final 
ajipeal  must  be  had.  In  it  the  tru€  outlines  of 
the  ^^  mould "  are  traceable,  and  by  it  they  may 
be  restored.  "It  is  not  he  that  hath  good  gold 
that  is  afraid  to  bring  it  to  the  touchstone,"  said 
King  James's  translators.  He  only  will  l)j 
justified  in  the  end  who  shall  be  found  in  sim- 
plicity   and    integrity,   '^Holding    fast    the 


THE   END. 


BV811  .T45 

The  mould  of  doctrine  :  a  study  of 

Princeton  Theological  Semmary-Speer  Library 


1    1012  00051   8425 


-m 


